Anniversary
by ArentYouSophiaLoren-8887
Summary: A year after a terrible tragedy left them shattered, Clare and Eli escape for a weekend getaway to remember their lost friend and deal with their grief.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: I owe the inspiration for this story to MusikSnob, one of my favorite authors in fanfiction and one of the best Eclare writers out there. This story is the sequel to and is based off of a oneshot she wrote titled, "Memorial", but it also borrows moments and ideas from other Eclare stories of hers such as "Don't Leave" & "A Sister's Return". **

**But don't just read those stories- please, read them all, because honestly, Eclare fics are a dime a dozen, but hers are really the cream of the crop. And I owe her a lot of credit for this story as well for being my editor and motivational beta-reader. Thanks again, Snob, for all your help. =)**

**I don't own Degrassi, or the circumstances behind this story. Those belong to Epitome and Musik Snob, respectively.**

**REVIEW.**

**I.**

Clare could understand why Adam was so upset. After all, the whole thing _had_ been his idea.

His original plan: a weekend sleepover at Clare's family's lake house 40 miles away from the city. No lights, no noise, no neighbors…no nothing. Just the lake, an empty house secluded deep in the Canadian woods, and plenty of free time to enjoy the summer weather, which had so recently taken a turn for the spectacular.

And most of all, they would enjoy one another- while they still could.

Clare knew how important that was for Adam. It was just as important to her to have this time with her boys. In just two short months, Eli would be heading off for Banting, and she and Adam would be left alone to finish their senior year at Degrassi without him. Sure, they would be able to visit him at school, and he would be back for the holidays, but it just wouldn't be the same without him, his arm around Clare's shoulders and holding a conversation with Adam as the three of them walked abreast down the school hallways.

Clare could hardly believe that he was leaving. It just didn't seem real to her. Even when she watched Eli receive his diploma two weeks ago at graduation and had taken pictures with him, Adam, and Drew, the whole thing just seemed too surreal to be believable.

Eli _couldn't_ be leaving them. He just _couldn't_ be.

He was too big a part of her life to just up and go like that. He had been for the past two years. He was the person she had turned to, when it seemed as if her entire life was falling apart. She had gone to him when she felt nothing could ever be right again. She was who she held on to, when she felt like she was all alone.

What would she do without him?

As much as she had always hated procrastination, she didn't want to think about that right now. She just couldn't bring herself to think about what it would be like for her and Adam, going through their last year at school without Eli with them. So for now, they agreed that they would just try to soak up as much time as they possibly could with one another, and let whatever happened, happen.

The summer would end soon enough. Before they knew it, Eli would be gone, and they'd be alone. Why dwell on that now. It would only ruin the rest of the time they had left- time they should cherish together to be carefree teenagers, while they still had the chance.

Which is where the whole idea for a little summer road trip had come in. Adam had wanted them to all be able to do something this summer, something big, as a way to celebrate Eli's graduation and at the same time mourn the fact that they were losing their best friend (and boyfriend).

They had gone through several ideas- spending a day at Wonderland (not special enough); going to the beach (Adam had looked intensely comfortable at the idea, and Eli didn't care much for the beach, anyway); driving to British Columbia to see the sights (Adam had thought it was "too boring", and Clare had looked at some of the hotel prices and had decided that it was way beyond what their modest budget could afford); and going to Niagara Falls (her parents vetoed that idea right away. As much as they had loosened up their hold on her in the years since the divorce, she was still underage, and they were no CeCe and Bullfrog Goldsworthy).

Finally, Clare had brought up the idea of a weekend at her family's lake house, and they had all agreed that it was the perfect way to spend a nice weekend alone.

Unfortunately, the only weekend that they could all get away at the same time just happened to fall on June 14, 2012.

The one-year anniversary of Sav's death.

**II.**

It wasn't as if any of them had forgotten.

How could they?

Sav's death had been a terrible blow to all of them- especially because it had happened so soon after he had graduated. One moment, they were celebrating his transition into this whole new life, so filled with hope and promise and the future, and the next, they were saying goodbye to him at his memorial service.

The idea of going off for a weekend to party and celebrate on such an occasion seemed blasphemous. Like they were spitting on Sav's grave or something. How could they possibly enjoy themselves, knowing that a year ago that weekend, their friend had died so senselessly?

Clare knew that Adam was upset at having to cancel their lake weekend getaway, but they all knew it was for the best. They all agreed- albeit a little grudgingly on Adam's part- that it just wouldn't feel right.

Besides, Clare wanted to be there for Alli, in case her friend needed her. And if there was ever a time when a friend should be there, it was now. She didn't want to be far from her in case Alli was struggling to get through what would always be one of the toughest times in her life.

**III.**

Then the idea sparked in Clare's head.

Why not bring Alli with them to the lake house?

It might be nice for her to get away, Clare reasoned. After all, if she was just planning on staying home on the one-year anniversary, she would be surrounded by reminders of Sav literally everywhere she went.

Maybe what Alli needed was to create some distance. Maybe she just needed to get away to some place where Sav had never been, and she had never created a single memory with her older brother. Maybe if she was in a place where she wouldn't be bowled over by memories of him and all of the things he had left behind after his death, it might be a little bit easier to move on.

Clare had run this idea by Eli very hesitantly. She figured that he, better than anyone, would know best on this subject, but she knew that even nearly three years after Julia's death, Eli wasn't exactly an open book on the topic.

Eli had paused for a very long moment.

"Clare," he told her quietly, "you know that nothing that any of us do is going to make this any easier."

"I know that," she said.

"I know that you're trying to help," he continued as if she hadn't spoken, "but any way you slice and dice it, it's still going to be hell for Alli to get through that day." He cleared his throat and paused again. "And it always will be."

"I _know_, Eli," she insisted. "I just thought…"

She looked at Eli helplessly, and knew exactly what he was thinking. She remembered very clearly the conversation she had had with Eli, on the two year anniversary of Julia's death.

After a panic attack followed by hysterical sobbing and him hugging her belly, begging her not to leave him alone, she had laid beside Eli in his bed in pitch darkness, and he had whispered to her something she had never wanted to hear:

Exactly one year after Julia died, he tried to commit suicide.

If his mother hadn't come in to check on him at the exact moment she had, he would have died right in this very room, and she would have never known him. It would have been as if he had never existed at all.

In her heart of hearts, Clare didn't believe that Alli would try such a thing. But despite her misgivings, she didn't want to leave her best friend alone on this day for anything. She was absolutely, 100% positive that had it been Darcy who had died, Alli wouldn't leave her side.

No matter what, Alli was her best friend, and had been for years.

Eli looked at her. "You really think this is a good idea?' he asked her.

She shrugged. "I have no idea," she admitted. "But she's my best friend, and she needs me. And maybe it would be a lot easier for her to get through it if she wasn't sitting around her house, like she's waiting for him to walk through the door or something."

Eli sighed.

"Yeah," he said, after a moment. "I think so, too."

**IV.**

To put it mildly, Adam was less than thrilled at the change of events.

"I thought this was supposed to be about us," he said stubbornly.

Clare and Eli looked one another helplessly. They knew Adam didn't mean to sound so bitchy and cold- he was just angry at losing time with his friends- but there were things more important than just them, right now. And regardless of how Eli felt about Alli, he understood her situation better than anyone else at the moment.

"I know you and Alli aren't exactly BFFs, Adam," Clare said, "but she's MINE, and she needs me right now."

"So spend the weekend with her at her place," he argued. "Or pick another weekend when just you can go up there together. We planned this for _us," _he emphasized, gesturing at all three of them.

Clare sighed. She understood where Adam was coming from. This year hadn't exactly been easy on him. After Fiona had left for college, the two of them had broken up- she hadn't wanted to continue a long distance relationship with her being in another country and everything, and although they had parted ways amicably, it had just killed Adam to lose her. His grades had suffered mightily, not to mention his self-esteem. He had been moody and borderline intolerable for months, alternating between being miserably and mopey to surly and sullen, saying that he would never get that lucky with another girl ever again and had said goodbye to the only woman he would ever have a chance with in his whole life. On top of everything else, he and his mother had gotten into several fights about seemingly everything under the sun, which hadn't done much to improve his confidence that had been knocked down several notches by Fiona breaking up with him.

More than once, Eli and Clare had been genuinely fearful that Adam would start harming himself again. He just seemed so depressed and down all the time, and was even bailing on hanging out with his brother and Guy's Nights with Eli until Adam was alone nearly all the time. He stopped wanting to hang out with them after school, and more than once had gotten detention for falling asleep in class or skipping altogether.

Both of them voiced fears to Drew, who assured them both that he was being extra-vigilant with his brother, but it still didn't stop them from cornering Adam one day and forcing him to pull his sleeves up so they could check for any bright red criss-crosses forming latticework on his skin.

They hadn't found any, but that intervention alone had been enough to snap Adam out of the worst of it. After that, Adam's mood had improved immensely, albeit slowly. While junior year hadn't been a picnic, they had ended it on more or less a good note.

"Adam," Clare tried again, "I know this must suck to you, but Alli needs me right now. More than you do," she added, when he opened his mouth to protest.

"Look, dude," Eli stepped in suddenly. "I promise, we'll have tons of time to hang out this summer. All three of us. And even you and me, if that's what you want. Whatever you want, we'll try our best to do it. But…I'm with Clare on this one."

Adam looked at Eli, who looked back steadily. The two of them stared at one another for a long moment, and then Adam hung his head, looking defeated. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he knew where Eli was coming from, and knew he was right.

Sending another pout in Clare's direction, he turned back to Eli and sighed.

"Since you're bringing Alli," he told him, "I think we should invite a few other people, too. So nobody feels left out or anything."

Eli and Clare glanced at each other, shrugging.

"I guess," they both agreed.


	2. Chapter 1

"Did you remember to pack the cooler?" Jenna called, her voice slightly muffled from the inside of Adam's mother's Suburban.

"Yeah," Clare shouted back. "It's right underneath the green beach bag."

"Which one?"

"The green one!"

"Which green one?"

"The one with the beach towels in it," Clare hollered back.

"Clare," Eli put in, "why don't you just go in there and help her find the cooler?"

"Because," Clare said, grunting as she lifted the sides of the large Rubbermaid bin that contained some of their food supply for the weekend, "it's right there in front of her face under the big green mesh bag. She's got to be blind not to see it. Now, help me with this."

Eli rolled his eyes, then grabbed one of the side handles of the bin, and the two of them walked the bin towards the SUV.

Jenna squatted in what little space they had left in the nearly full trunk area, her eyes darting around as she searched for the hidden cooler. Recognition dawned on her face when she found it, and she excitedly scratched it off the list in her hand.

"Cooler, check," she said, then glanced at the tub Clare and Eli were holding. "That the food?"

Clare nodded. "Did Adam remember to pack the bug spray? It gets pretty vicious this time of year."

"I don't know. ADAM!" she yelled across the yard. "Did you pack the bug spray?"

"YEAH!" he shouted back from the back door of the house. "It's in the bag with the sunblock."

"Which one is that?"

"The mesh one!"

"Which mesh one?"

"Okay," Eli sighed, lowering the tub down onto the driveway and scrambling into the van with Jenna. "We're gonna do this the easy way. _Without_ shrieking." He motioned for Jenna to climb down. "It's seven thirty AM, guys. Waaaaay too early to be yelling like this."

He took the list from Jenna, and got down on his knees, peering around the claustrophobia-inducing trunk space, every now and then checking something off the list Clare had made of all the things they needed to bring before they headed out.

He peered at the list and raised his eyebrows. "A first-aid kit?" he asked Clare. "Really?"

She put her hands on her hips. "You never know what might happen."

"Yeah," he said drily. "Wouldn't want to get mauled by a rabid squirrel or something out there."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Laugh all you want, but there's no way we're heading out into the middle of nowhere with at least some band-aids and rubbing alcohol. That's like begging for trouble."

"So is leaving the house without phone chargers," he reminded her. "Did you bring yours?"

She nodded. "Did you remember to pack the flashlights?"

"I didn't," he said. "I thought K.C. did that."

"I'll check."

"Please just go ask," he begged. "I don't need to hear anymore yelling, at least until I get a cup of coffee."

She made a face at him, then headed back into Adam's house, where the rest of their party was gathered in the kitchen. Adam was busy tossing some last-minute items into a knapsack, while K.C. and Jenna loaded the drink cooler full of water bottles- and a few cans of Budweiser, strategically hidden underneath the piles of Zephyr Hills.

"K.C., did you remember to pack the flashlights?"

He glanced up at her. "Yeah. They're in the same bag as the bug spray and suntan lotion. The red mesh bag."

She nodded. "Jenna, did you remember…"

"Yes, Clare-Bear," the girl cut off in an exasperated voice. "I packed the towels, the umbrella, the extra case of water… we brought enough to survive a nuclear war. It's just for the weekend, Clare."

"I know," she insisted, sounding like a ninny and she knew it. "But you never know."

"This is coming from the girl who packed six extra bottles and an entire 24-pack of diapers, along with an entire separate bag filled with baby toys, just for Alex to spend not even two full days with my mother," K.C. teased Jenna.

The blonde girl flushed, and Clare couldn't help feeling a little like cheering at K.C.

Alli, who had been helping Adam haul the beach umbrella out of the garage, rolled her eyes at them.

"Okay. Seriously, everybody in this room needs to step back and take a break. R-E-L-A-X," said, though whether it was to her or Jenna Clare couldn't tell. "This weekend will be _fine_. Everyone will be _fine._ So let's all just breathe and enjoy it. Right?"

K.C. hoisted one of the duffel bags piled by the car and headed out to the van to help Eli finish packing. "She's got a point," he called over his shoulder.

Jenna sighed, then pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her cut-offs.

"No messages," she muttered. She glanced at Clare. "What do you think that means?"

"That nobody's awake at this time of day?" she joked.

Jenna didn't crack a smile, but instead glanced out the kitchen window to watch K.C. and Eli loading Mrs. Torres's Suburban.

"This is the longest we'll be away from the baby," she said, her eyes glued to the boys. "I don't know how it'll be. What if something happens?"

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Clare reassured. "It's only for a day and a half. Not even two full days. You'll be back by Sunday night."

"I know," Jenna sighed. "I just…I hate to leave her. It's hard enough leaving her to go to school most of the time."

"She'll be _fine,_" Clare said again, repeating K.C's refrain.

Jenna gave her a weak smile, then her eyes slid to Alli.

"How about you, Alli?" she asked. "You doing alright?"

Alli shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know," she said with a small laugh. "As well as can be expected, I guess."

Jenna sidled closer to her, sliding an arm around her sympathetically, and Clare touched her shoulder.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" she asked suddenly. "This whole weekend? Cause if you're not…"

Alli glanced up at her. "I'm okay with it," she replied, her tone insistently chipper.

"Are you sure?" Clare pressed. "Cause Alli, if you're not, we totally don't have to do this. We can just hang out, you and me…and Jenna," she added, when she saw the look the other girl gave her. "We don't have to do some big weekend getaway. We can just do whatever you want. This is about you."

"Clare," Alli put in, "I'm okay with this, okay? Promise." She offered the girls a bright smile.

"Believe me," she added, "you couldn't get me to spend a weekend out in the gross outdoors unless I _really_ wanted to do it. So don't feel like you forced me to go, cause you didn't."

She paused, then added in a much quieter tone, "I just…really can't be home right now."

Jenna squeezed Alli's shoulders tightly. Clare drew her friend closer, and the three girls pulled together, tangling their arms together in a knotted hug.

"Ahem."

Clare heard the sound of someone clearing his throat behind them, and she untangled herself from her friends to see Adam standing awkwardly in the doorway of the kitchen.

"You guys all set?" he asked. "We've got everything all packed."

Clare nodded. "We just need to get this cooler out."

Adam came over to help them, and the four of them carried the weighty drink cooler out to the car, where K.C. and Eli nestled it into the tiny little space they had left in the brimming trunk.

"All ready," Eli announced. "All aboard."

Eli climbed into the driver's seat, and Clare slid in beside him, giving Adam a sympathetic look. She wanted to sit in the middle seat bench with him and Adam, but unanimously voted the best with directions and the only one who had ever been there before, she needed to help Eli navigate.

Adam rolled his eyes, not entirely kidding. While his mood had improved somewhat about the whole weekend situation, he was pissed about not being allowed to bring Drew- for obvious reasons. Sure, he had Eli and K.C., whom he had grown to be friends with through Drew, but it wasn't the same. Besides, two couples living with him for the weekend was a visceral reminder of Fiona's absence, even with dateless Alli along.

Alli and Jenna sqeezed in together on the bench in the backseat, and K.C. took the seat beside Jenna.

"Alright," Jenna cheered as they backed out of the driveway. The sun was just beginning to come up, light poking into the dimness of the early morning and bleeding out onto the horizon. "And off we go."

"Just after we get some coffee, first," Eli reminded her weakly.


	3. Chapter 2

By the time they had finished unpacking, the weather was perfect, and even Adam couldn't suppress his excitement. The group practically tore their clothes off and changed into bathing suits, running down to the lake with towels in hand.

K.C. and Eli immediately leapt right into the water, and then came up howling seconds later.

"FUCK, IT'S COLD!" K.C. shouted, kicking furiously in an effort to warm himself up.

"Wuss," Eli teased.

K.C. skimmed the water his direction, and before long they were having a full-fledged water fight.

"Hey!" Jenna yelped. She sat at the edge of the dock in her shorts and a bikini top, laughing and holding up her arms in mock-surrender as the water splashed on her. "Watch it, guys."

"Get in here, Baby Momma," K.C. challenged.

"No. Way." Jenna stayed rooted in place. "That water is freezing."

K.C. arched one eyebrow dramatically. "Oh, yeah?" he purred, swimming towards the edge of the dock slowly.

Jenna immediately sensed what he was trying to do and backed away from the edge. "Don't you even dare," she shouted.

K.C. blinked, total innocence. "Wouldn't dream of it, Baby Momma."

Jenna still watched him dubiously, sidling a bit closer to the edge. In her moment of hesitation, K.C. leapt up and grabbed her ankle, tugging her down into the water with an ear-splitting shriek and a loud, clumsy splash.

Clare and Alli watched and grinned from their beach towels on the sandy lake shore, laughing as Jenna surfaced with spitting-cat fury, tackling and screaming at K.C.

Alli lay back on her beach towel, shielding her eyes with her arms. "It's so nice," she murmured.

Clare nodded, untying her hair loose from its bun and letting it flow loosely around her shoulders.

"Adam," she asked, "would you mind putting some of this on my back, please?"

He nodded, squirting some lotion onto his hands and applying some of it to her shoulders, which Clare knew were likely to get burnt no matter if she put the entire bottle on them. Her milky skin tended to fry in the mildest of sunshine, and it didn't seem to matter how hard she tried to stop it.

Clare glanced at Adam in his long jeans and t-shirt. He had sworn up and down to Clare and Eli that he was okay with going to the lake for the weekend- after all, he didn't have to go swimming- but Clare wondered if now, he was regretting the fact that he couldn't just throw on a bathing suit and go chill in the water with Eli. Instead, he was stuck onshore with her and Alli.

"You okay?' she murmured, as he layered some Coppertone onto the back of her neck.

His hand paused on her back for a moment, then he nodded. "I told you guys I was okay with this."

"Yeah," she pressed, "but are you really?"

He sighed. "If I want to go swimming, I'll just go in these," he said, gesturing to his clothes. "I _did_ bring extra."

"As long as you're comfortable," she said, asking him for reassurance at the same time.

He finished rubbing the lotion on her lower back and capped the bottle, tossing it back to her. Then he gave her a smile, the first real one she had seen in a while since they began planning this whole trip.

"I'm alright," he answered, filling in her blank.

She smiled back at him.

"Machisimo!" Eli shouted from the water, gesturing with his arm. "Get in here!"

Clare glanced at Adam for a brief moment, but felt the knot in her stomach loosen when she saw him smirk, scrambling to his feet and heading at a dead run to the edge of the dock.

"CANNONBALL!" he bellowed, tucking his knees to his chest and landing with an impressive cannon of water shooting up in his wake.

She and Alli laughed, and Jenna shrieked bloody murder again as K.C. tried to tug her under the water.

Eli swam ashore and came over to them, sopping water onto their beach towel.

"Hey," Alli complained, rolling away from him.

Eli smirked down at them, then shook himself out like a wet dog, spraying water everywhere like a sprinkler head.

"ELI!" Clare shouted, scrambling to her feet.

Before she had time to react, Eli grabbed a hold of her and picked her up, clumsily running towards the lake as she kicked and tried to resist.

"Eli!" she shouted again, laughing so hard the word barely sounded intelligible.

She tried to yell again, but all of a sudden the world went dark and cold, and she had no idea which way was up or down.

The hand still holding her gripped her arm tighter, and just as soon as the entire world went upside-down it righted itself again, albeit a bit too brightly. It was like someone had turned up the dials on her senses. The sunlight beat her eyes like a drunk's hangover; the water made goosebumps race across her skin like a rumor; the splashing and yelling and every noise overwhelmed her so much she couldn't even hear her own thoughts.

"You…" she finally spat, coughing as she spit up more lake water. "You…"

He swam closer to her and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her waist under the water.

"I am," he said knowingly, grinning at her.

She tried to look exasperated, but couldn't help her smile.

On the shore behind her, a sopping-wet and fully-clothed Adam was howling with laughter and Alli was doubled over in giggles.

Clare wrapped her arms around Eli's neck, and their legs entangled together underneath the water like seaweed. He pulled her closer until their foreheads were bent together, their wet hair dripping onto each other's cheeks.

"Having fun so far?" he whispered.

Clare nodded. "I think so."

"You _think_ so?" His hands roamed southward, grabbing her behind and pulling it against his hips.

"Hey," she warned, pushing him back playfully.

Eli laughed, then his face suddenly became serious.

"What's bugging you?"

She sighed. "I don't know. I'm having fun. I just…"

Her voice trailed off, and both she and Eli's glances went to the shore. Adam was chasing Alli and threatening to drag her in with him while Alli darted and shrieked, kicking a stream of water in his direction to try and ward him off.

"You think she's holding up alright?" she asked Eli.

He watched Alli carefully.

"I don't know," he told her. "You know her better than I do. What do you think?"

She glanced back at Alli, now throwing a hunk of mud at Adam, who swore at the top of his voice.

"I think she's alright. I mean, I hope she is. I don't know. I have no idea. She won't talk to me. I can't tell if it's a front, or if she's really alright. I just wish she would talk to me."

"She'll talk to you when she's ready," Eli answered.

"I know, but how do I know when that'll be?"

"You won't. It's not your time, it's hers."

"I just wish I knew how to help," Clare murmured.

"You _do_," Eli pushed. "Look, sometimes you just got to let people go at their own pace, alright? Remember? Alli will talk when she's ready to talk. You're doing the right thing right now. Just let things go."

"I'm just scared," she admitted quietly. "I'm so scared of what's going to happen if she waits to tell me."

A shudder ran through Clare involuntarily. She met Eli's eyes, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

Except for directly after the funeral, Alli hadn't spoken a word of Sav to Clare- and as far as Clare knew, she had been just as reticent about the topic to everyone else as well. She could barely even bring herself to speak her brother's _name._ Clare knew it was naïve to believe that Alli would magically be cured of her grief with a weekend away at the lake, but she had really thought that taking her friend out of the city and into a place where she was free from the overwhelming memories of her dead brother would be a catalyst in her being able to open up more on the subject.

She knew from her experience with Eli concerning Julia that she would never be able to tell when Alli would be able to speak about Sav.

But she hoped that it never had to come to the point where Eli had been for Alli to finally start opening up to her.


	4. Chapter 3

As the afternoon sun started to fade behind the trees and the chilly dusk settled over their camp, the boys (and Jenna) abandoned the icy lake water for a touch football game that even Eli joined. Clare itched to join them, but Alli was more interested in sitting on a blanket and reading, so Clare sat beside her and took some black-and-whites with the camera Eli had gotten her for her birthday. Occasionally she would snap a shot of the rest of the group- K.C. scooping Jenna into his arms and kissing her on her sweaty forehead; Eli roughhousing with Adam; K.C. nearly toppling to the ground when Adam tried to jump onto his back.

She turned the camera on Alli, who shielded her face with her magazine. "Don't, Clare," she groaned.

"Oh, come on," she pleaded. "One photo, Alli. Please?"

"When I don't look like Mountain Woman," Alli said. "No."

Clare grinned, lowering the camera and snapping a shot of the sun going down over the lake water.

Beside her, Alli sighed and laid flat on her stomach, resting her head in her arms.

"It's so nice here," she murmured. "How come you never brought me here before?"

"We haven't been in a few years," Clare said, zooming in to get a closer shot of the sun, which looked like it was dipping into the water and spreading like a jar of spilled paint over the clear, still surface. "We used to come here every summer. But then my grandfather died when I was in Grade 7, and my grandma had to start renting the house out to make enough money to keep it."

She paused for a moment, the camera poised in mid-air.

"Then," she said slowly, "um…Darcy, well…all the stuff happened with her, and we just sort of stopped going on any vacations or doing anything much as a family."

Maybe that, Clare realized, was when things had started deteriorating between them. When the arguments she had put off as being solely involved with everything revolving around her older sister began to be more of the norm than the exception.

Then again, how would she know? Back then, she had never once believed that the word _divorce_ would ever cross her path.

"Clare?"

She blinked, coming back to earth. "After Darcy, all the drama happened with my parents, and then, well, we just got caught up with one thing and another and stopped having the time to come here."

Alli nodded thoughtfully.

They sat in silence, except for the birds over the water and the yells from their friends, now more engaged in what looked like a giant wrestling match than football.

Out of nowhere, Alli said, "We had a house in South Carolina when I was a kid."

Clare looked at her in surprise. She'd never heard that before. "Really?"

Alli nodded. Her eyes were on the water.

"How long did you have it?"

"I dunno. Till I was…nine, maybe?" Alli sighed, propping herself up on her elbows. "My dad had a cousin who owned a house on Hilton Head Island, so we used to go down there to visit them for a few weeks every summer."

"Sounds like fun," Clare commented.

"Yeah," Alli said, her voice drifting off. "It was."

After a moment, Alli spoke again.

"We used to have this closet in the house filled with our toys. I had this whole bucket of Barbie dolls and Sailor Moon videos."

A pause.

"And…Sav," she finished, "had this whole tub of army men."

Clare gave her friend a sideways glare, gently easing the camera onto the blanket. She didn't dare move too quickly, or even breathe too loudly, for fear of breaking the spell. Alli hadn't mentioned Sav's name this entire trip-in fact, Clare couldn't remember the last time she had spoken her brother's name.

"He used to bring them to the beach with him," Alli continued. Her eyes were still staring out at the lake. "And he and my cousin used to set up this entire army setting on the sand. And I mean, they were, like, super-elaborate. Sav went through this whole World War II-obsessed phase where he watched all this history channel stuff and _Saving Private Ryan_. He was in middle school, I think. Anyway, he was big into setting up all these huge, epic battle scenes."

A small smile had begun to spread across her face when she said that, but all of a sudden, her brows knitted together

"I used to mess up those scenes a lot," Alli said. "I'd step on them or kick them over and steal some of the army men. It used to piss Sav off _a lot._ Which," she said wryly, "is probably why I did it. But I used to think it was funny."

"Of course," she added, "He used to pay me back by tearing down the clubhouses my cousins and I built out of beach towels underneath the dining room chairs."

Clare smiled, but Alli still didn't look at her.

"I don't know why I did that," she said after a long pause.

Alli frowned, a darkness creeping into her eyes like the darkness creeping over the water.

"I don't know why I loved to mess with him so much," she whispered, more to herself than to Clare.

Clare bent slightly closer, wishing she could telepathically signal the others to quiet their shouting so she wouldn't have to strain to hear her.

However, the moment abruptly ended when somebody suddenly cried, "HEY!", and before Clare knew it, a football came sailing through the air and landed in the space between her and Alli.

Alli yelped, startled, and rolled away from the oncoming missile. Clare jumped, too, and landed square on a tree root, wincing at the pain in her behind.

K.C. came rushing over to the two of them. "Shit, guys," he said. "Sorry about that."

Clare glared at him, her eyes watering. It wasn't just the pain in her tailbone that pissed her off, but the fact that she felt like K.C. had broken something between the two girls. She felt as if Alli had come so close to saying _something_. She wasn't sure what it was, exactly, but whatever it was, Clare had the sense that it was important.


	5. Chapter 4

Once the night had settled in completely, the temperature dropped much more than they had expected it to.

"Shit," Adam said, pulling his jacket tighter around himself. "It is freaking _cold."_

Jenna shivered. "I didn't bring a coat," she whined, her teeth chattering.

K.C. came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. "That help?" he asked.

Jenna smiled at him. "Not much," she chattered.

Eli wrapped his arms around Clare's waist, kissing her forehead. "Wish I brought more than this jacket," he whispered in her ear.

Clare put her hands over his, resting on her stomach. "Once we get the fire started, we'll be warmer."

Alli knelt down by the campfire pit, poking the blackened wood with a long stick. "We'll need to get some kerosene," she said.

"Inside," Clare replied. "I'll grab some extra blankets for everybody."

When she returned from the house, carrying an armful of blankets from the hallway linen closet, the boys were poking the newborn campfire with fallen tree limbs, turning the logs as the flame grew and smoke curled into the darkness.

Jenna accepted the blanket gratefully, wrapping it around her shivering form and taking a seat on the log closest to the fire.

"Careful," Eli warned her. "Sparks are bouncing around."

"I'll take the risk," Jenna replied, scooting closer and holding out her hands to the warmth of the crackling flames.

Alli sat on a log nearby in her jeans and t-shirt, staring into the fire with an inscrutable expression on her face. Her eyes were damp; whether it was from the smoke peeling off of the fire or if she was actually crying, Clare couldn't tell. In the flickering half-light, Alli's face looked so intensely unlike her, it was almost surreal- as if it wasn't even her at all.

It reminded her of the negatives she had of her black and white photos, the faces twisted in an eerie expression so that it looked as if the face wasn't anything more than two sunken, sightless eyes on a skeleton's bare bones.

Ironic; if a photo was about capturing a person as they were in that moment, then the negative could almost be seen as capturing the essence of that person at the same time. Instead of showing the posed, superficial quality to that person by bringing out the scene around them, though, the negative made the background nearly pitch-black, so that the only thing the viewer could focus on was the face- that grotesque, haunting, ghoulish face that highlighted not the person's outer, seeming flawlessness, but instead exposing the monstrousness that lay beneath the skin and hair and nails.

When one put it like that, _negative _seemed like a depressingly appropriate label.

"Clare!"

Adam's voice snapped her out of her reverie.

"Clare?" he repeated, waving his hand in front of her face. "Are you in there?"

She swatted his hand away in irritation. "Yeah," she muttered, thrusting the blanket in his arms.

He frowned. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing." She went to go sit beside Alli on the log, wrapping the both of them in a large blue quilt.

Eli gave her a look when she took a seat, but she raised her eyebrows at him, letting him know that this was where she needed to be right now. His lips narrowed together in a thin line, but he just took a seat next to Adam and didn't say anything.

_You knew what this weekend was about, _Clare thought in frustration, glaring into the fire. _If you wanted an all-weekend sex party, well, sorry. You better than anyone should understand that she needs me more than you do right now. Get over it. _

"Oh, crap," Alli groaned. "My marshmallow's all burnt."

"Yeah, my hot dog just got fried," K.C. said.

Alli snickered. "That happen a lot?" she asked slyly.

"Alli!" Jenna squealed, as K.C. threw her a dirty look and Eli and Adam snickered.

"Here," Eli said, exchanging his own stick for Alli's. "Mine's perfectly cooked."

"You sure?" Alli asked.

"Yep," Eli agreed, licking the sticky sugar off his fingers. "That's just how I like my marshmallows. Carcinogenic."

"Gross," Jenna said, watching Eli squeeze the gooey center out of the burnt outer crust and into his mouth.

Clare twirled her stick in the palm of her hand, watching the flames twirl from the center of the fire, almost like a demonic ballet. Beside her, Alli had gone stony again, her face still holding that completely unreadable expression. It was as if she was saying twenty things at once, without ever speaking a word.

Oddly enough, it reminded her of the looks that crossed Eli's face. She knew that something was going on beyond the face, but what exactly it was, she had no idea.

"You alright?" she whispered.

Alli blinked. "What?"

"Are you doing okay?"

Alli looked at her strangely. "I'm fine."

"Look, Clare, I am ALRIGHT," Alli said sharply- and by sharply, Clare actually felt as if her entire face had narrowed into a point at her chin.

Clare realized she ought to take a step back, so she nodded her head and swallowed her response.

"Okay," she said quietly. "Alright."

Alli looked away, her cheeks burning. "Sorry," she muttered.

In a much softer tone than before, she added, "Promise, okay? I'm fine."

"One more fine, and I won't believe you," Clare said, playfully this time so she wouldn't sound too prying.

Alli gave her that strange look again. "I was just thinking, is all."

"About what?"

"Nothing, really."

At Clare's probing expression, Alli sighed.

"I was just trying to remember if Sav and I did anything like this, growing up," she said.

Clare nodded, trying not to overreact.

"I mean, we weren't really like that," Alli continued. "We were never, like, all touchy-feely. Plus, my family never did the whole 'camping' thing." She let out a small giggle, covering her mouth like a schoolgirl. "I mean, can you imagine my parents ever camping?"

She and Clare both laughed.

"But I remember," she said, as their laughter died down, "the long car trips on our way to vacations. My dad used to play this game with us- it was the university game. He'd ask us, 'give me seven universities in Nova Scotia'." She rolled her eyes. "_That_ was my dad's version of a family game. Oh, that, and the geography game." Alli's voice adopted a deeper tone as she mimicked her father's voice. "Alliyah, tell me the capital of Thailand."

Clare smiled a bit, watching her friend. Alli's expression flickered like the flames curling off the log pile. It alternated between pensive and a bit of a scowl, though once or twice Clare thought she saw something that looked so desperately sad it made her eyes hurt, and not just from the smoke blowing in her face.


	6. Chapter 5

"_Tap on my window, knock on my door, I want to make you feel beautiful…"_

_Jenna hears the singing from the top of the staircase as she heads down the hallway to her bedroom, a fresh bottle of newly-warmed milk for Alex in hand. Sav sits cross-legged on her bedroom floor, gently pushing her daughter in her baby swing, cradling one of her tiny bare baby feet in his hand. _

"_I don't mind spending every day," he sings, giving the swing another light push, "out on your corner in the pouring rain…"_

_Jenna smiles at the sight of the two of them. _

"_Looking for some new song inspiration?" she teases._

_Sav grins up at her. "Hey," he jokes, "she's got some great ideas."_

"_Jenna!" Kyle shouts from the mudroom. "I'm home!"_

"_Up here!" she calls._

_After a moment, Kyle ascends the stairs and comes into her room, giving her a quick hug and kissing Alex on the top of her head. _

"_Kyle, this is Sav," she introduces. "We're singing the national anthem together at graduation. He just came by to practice."_

"_I was actually just leaving," Sav says as he shakes Kyle's hand. "I have a student council meeting about graduation stuff." He nods to Kyle, then bends down to kiss Alex. "Bye, pretty baby."_

_He waves to Jenna on his way out. "See you later."_

_She nods back. "Definitely."_

Jenna pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She checked her inbox, but no new texts or voice messages had come in.

K.C. peered over her shoulder. "Anything new?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nope."

She pocketed her phone again, leaning into K.C.'s arms as he tightened the blanket around the two of them, then reached into her pocket again.

"Seriously, Jenna?" he said.

"Maybe we should just call her," she replied. "You know. Say goodnight."

"She'll be alright, Jenna," he said, rubbing her back gently.

"I know," Jenna pressed, "but we should probably call her. It might be good for her to hear our voices. In case she has trouble sleeping."

"She's fine, Jen," he said again.

"But she's never gone to sleep without us!" Jenna protested, pulling away from his hold.

K.C. sighed, shaking his head as if he was just tired by the entire thing.

"If something was wrong," he told her, "my mom would have called. She's doing alright, okay? Let's just enjoy the vacation."

"I'm a mom," Jenna said.

"You think I forgot?"

"No, I'm just saying…I can't take a vacation."

"And _I'm _saying that there's a fine line between motherhood and martyrhood," K.C. countered. He took both of her cold hands in his and looked straight into her eyes. "She. Will. Be. FINE."

Jenna looked back into his- the same eyes that he had passed to their daughter, brown and wide. Cow eyes, Kyle jokingly called them. Sighing deeply and closing her eyes, she leaned against K.C., letting him wrap his arms around her as she rested on his shoulder.

"I miss her," she murmured into the folds of their blanket. "It's weird. I love being here, but I miss her, and want her to be here, but then again I don't because if she was, I'd be worrying about her all the time and wouldn't be having as much fun as I am now. But I still miss her. Is that weird?

"Jenna," K.C. said gently, "I know you're worried, but trust me, she's FINE. She will be OKAY, alright?"

She shook her head. "It's different for you."

He glanced down at her with raised eyebrows. "How so?"

"Cause you're not her mother, that's why! You don't have to think every single second about her, what could happen to her, what you need to do for her…"

"I DO think about her every minute," K.C. broke in." I'm always thinking about you- both of you. The only difference is, I don't obsess over it to the point that I drive myself crazy. Look, I promise you she will be okay, okay? Promise me you'll give it a rest, at least through tomorrow?"


	7. Chapter 6

Eli watched Clare and Alli talking, occasionally broken by the sound of their laughter as they twirled their marshmallows over the fire. He wished he knew what they were talking about, but decided it was best not to butt in. He figured Clare just needed some space right now with Alli. As much as he wanted to spend some time with his girlfriend on this non-supervised vacation, now wasn't the best time.

Not for the first time today, Julia's face flashed into his mind, along with Sav's.

Staring into the fire with a fierce determination, Eli swung his rod deeper into the fire, twirling the end in the flames until the marshmallows caught on fire and began to burn bright blue.

Adam watched as he munched on his hot dog, mustard stains on the corner of his mouth.

"Dude," he said in between chews, "that's gross."

"Says you," Eli shot back, wiping the mustard off Adam's face as his friend batted his hand away.

"How can you eat them like that?"

"Are you kidding me?" he said, whipping the rod out of the fire and blowing out the flame. "That's the best way to eat them."

Squirting another gooey, melted marshmallow into his mouth, Eli watched the fire flames leap and twist, staring at them so intently that his eyes began to blur from all the smoke.

"_Man, this is lame."_

"_Yeah. Of course it is. It's prom. What did you expect?"_

"_I dunno. If it was anything like last prom…" Sav's voice trails off. "You know what? Scratch that. I'm glad this is dull."_

_Eli grins, taking another sip of his punch. _

"_At least the girls are having fun," he says, gesturing towards their respective girlfriends. _

_Holly J and Fiona are dancing barefoot, Fiona holding up the train of her long, seafoam green gown as she and Holly J dance back to back. Holly J's red hair, so perfectly styled when they got into the limo hours earlier, is now loose and tangled around her shoulders in a way that amuses Eli. It's so odd to see her like this- Holly J Sinclair, Type A personified, tight-lipped and fierce, yet here she is dancing barefoot with tangled hair. It gives her a charming, little-girl look to her that Eli can never remember seeing on her before, like a reminder that despite her hard-ass persona, she's just as human as the rest of them._

_Clare and Alli are beside them, dancing with Jenna. Clare's red dress swirls around her bare legs, and her hair, which had been piled into an elegant bun at the nape of her neck when Eli had picked her up, is starting to trail out, loose wisps of curls falling into her eyes as Alli grabs her hand and gives her a twirl._

_Sav sighs deeply beside him, bringing him back to the conversation. "Man, I am gonna miss this," he says._

_Eli notes the sadness in his voice. "Really? You're actually gonna miss high school?"_

"_Actually, yeah. It's weird. Like, I'm not gonna miss all the drama and crap, but the people. I wish I could just take certain people with me when I go. Everything else can stay."_

"_Yeah," Eli agrees, trying to ignore the tug in his stomach that reminds him of the time he and Clare will have to part for university. "But it's not like you'll be a million miles away. I mean, U of T is in town, and you'll be living on campus. So really, it's the best of both worlds. You get all the freedom of being away from home without being too far away from home."_

"_Yeah, that's true," Sav agrees. "But still. Even with that, things won't be the same."_

_He pauses, watching the girls dance. Fiona stumbles slightly- whether it's from tripping on the train of her gown or the fact that she had a drink of champagne before coming neither of them can tell- and he takes a sip of his own punch._

"_It's just weird, to think that everything we know is a total lie," he says. "Like, high school is the biggest phony place of all. But once we get out there, it's the real world. We're all of a sudden not kids anymore, and we have to do everything on our own. It's just really scary to think that after this, we're officially responsible for everything in our own lives. No guidance counselors, no parents, no teachers to hassle us. We're on our own."_

"_It is pretty scary," Eli admits. _

"_I just don't know how I'm gonna handle it," Sav adds._

_Eli looks at him. He's trying to look unconcerned, but Eli can tell it is hard for him to admit his fear. _

"_You'll be fine," he tells him. "And it's not like we're going anywhere. Anytime you want to jam, Adam and I are here."_

_Sav smiles at him. "Thanks, man," he says._

"_So have you found your roommate yet?"_

"_No. We don't get our room assignments until the summer." Sav sighs again. "I wish I could room with Peter- he's getting this apartment off campus- but my parents are making me live on campus for a year, so I'll have to wait, which really sucks. I can't imagine living with a total stranger."_

"_Neither can I," Eli says. _

"_You know what we should do?" Sav asks. "We should move in together. When you're a freshman. You said you were thinking about U of T, right?"_

"_Yeah, that's one of my choices. That'd be really cool if we did room together. No unknown roommates, no awkwardness, no R.A.s and all that peppy 'get involved' bullshit."_

"_Definitely," Sav agrees. "It would be cool. Besides, don't apartments cost way less than dorms?"_

"_Yeah, and if three of us are living together, then rent and utilities split would be, like, nothing."_

_Sav nods. "And if Adam goes to U of T, we can all room together."_

"_That would be pretty awesome." Eli sighs. "Only a year more to go."_

"_Hey," Sav tells him. "Before you know it, it'll be over."_

"Eli."

Adam called his name, snapping him to attention. "What?"

He pointed to the hot dog in Eli's hand. "Your meat's hanging out," he told him.

Eli glanced down. His hand was pointed downward, and his hot dog was dangling precariously out of the bun, dangerously close to dropping into the dirt.

"It's okay," he smirked at Adam. "I like my meat hanging out."

Adam rolled his eyes. "Don't be gross," he chided, punching him on the shoulder.

Eli punched back with a grin, trying to push the memory out of his mind.


	8. Chapter 7

Adam suddenly stood up and stretched himself out.

"I'm head down to the lake," he said. "Anyone want to go?"

"You want to go swimming?" Jenna asked incredulously.

Adam shook his head. "Just sit on the dock. Anyone interested?"

"I will," K.C. said. He grabbed a beer out of the cooler and tossed one to Adam. "Anyone else want to come?"

Clare stood up, dusting some of the wood chips and ashes off her jeans. "I'll go," she volunteered. "The stars are nice tonight." She glanced at Eli, who shook his head.

"I think I'm gonna head in," he told her. He grabbed her hand and tugged her downward for a kiss. "I'll take care of killing the fire."

"I'm going in, too," Alli said. "I'm gonna get a shower."

"Me, too," Jenna replied.

Eli snickered.

"Hey!" Jenna yelped, smacking him on the arm. "Get your mind out of the gutter! That's you and Clare's job, anyway."

Clare flushed and glared at Jenna, while Eli laughed and Adam rolled his eyes at them for what felt like the millionth time today.

"God," he muttered. "Thank Christ I'm sleeping downstairs tonight. Wouldn't wanna be awake all night listening to you two's sex noises."

"Nothing you haven't heard before," Eli replied flippantly.

"Eww," Alli said, grinning. "You never told me about _that _time_,_ Clare."

"Because it's not true!" she denied frantically.

"Okay," K.C. stepped in. "Can we please just _not_?"

"Yes," Clare muttered, grateful for the interruption. She grabbed Adam's arm and practically towed him down with her. "Lake. Now."

"Night," they all called. She heard the rest of the group's laughter from behind her as they headed into the house.

Clare turned around and her retreating backside as Alli made her way through the clump of woods.

K.C. seemed to realize what she was thinking, because he bent close enough to her that their foreheads were nearly touching.

"Is she doing alright?" he whispered.

Clare shrugged, eyes still fixed on the cabin, as if she could somehow see through the walls.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I have no idea how she's doing."

"Has she said anything?" K.C. asked.

Clare shook her head. "I didn't want to bring it up."

K.C. sighed. "I guess she'll talk to us when she's ready to talk," he replied.

They spread the blanket out at the very edge of the dock and lay with their feet dangling over the dark, still water, lying on their backs and staring up at the stars.

"You don't see that in the city," K.C. said after a long moment.

"Too much air pollution, traffic, too many lights," Clare went on.

"It _is _nice," Adam agreed, taking a swig of his beer.

After a moment of quiet admiration, K.C. tentatively asked, "I hate sounding like a broken record, but do you really think Alli's doing okay?"

Clare sighed, closing her eyes. "Oh, God, I don't know."

"I'm worried about her," K.C. went on. "I wish we knew how to help."

Adam sat up. "Her brother's _dead,_ Kace," he said. "There isn't anything we can do to help."

"Jesus, Adam," K.C. muttered.

Adam glared at him. "What?" he said defensively. "There isn't. I mean, what could we say that doesn't sound like a fucking Hallmark card? 'He's in a better place' and all that bullshit?"

Adam crunched his empty beer can in his fist, and winding his arm back, hurled it across the lake, shattering the peaceful night stillness. The water rippled and waved, and something rustled in the underbrush, making Clare sit up and look around nervously.

"I mean, what the fuck does that _mean_, anyway?" Adam continued. " 'He's in a better place.' Who honestly is going to say something like that? No, of course they're not in a better place. They're fucking _dead. _They're_ gone. _There _is_ nothing better. It's just…" his voice trailed off for a moment, trying to find the right word. "Over."

Clare propped herself up on her elbows and watched him intently. "You really believe that?" she asked softly.

Adam seemed to really consider her words for a moment before shaking his head.

"I don't know. Maybe."

He sighed, staring into the darkness. "I don't know," he repeated, more sadly this time.

K.C. finished off his beer and sat up, watching the spotlight of the moon on the lake water.

"What do you think is out there?" he asked to no one in particular.

"What do you mean?" asked Clare.

"I know what _you_ believe," he said to Clare, eyeing the ring on her finger.

"I believe in something," she clarified. "I'm just…not sure what it is, exactly. There's a difference in believing something because you're told it at age 7 and believing it because you've actually given it some thought."

K.C. peered at her through his bangs. "So what do you think?" he asked. "Do you think Sav's in heaven?"

"I don't think he's in hell," she replied. "I just…"she sighed. "I don't know."

"I mean, that's what Christians believe, though, right?" he continued. "You either go to Heaven or Hell?" He glanced at the boys, hoping for a clarification.

Adam rolled his eyes in response. "Hey, don't look at me," he said drily. "I'm no Jesus Freak."

K.C. looked back at Clare expectantly.

"Yeah, that's true, but I'm not really sureif what I even believe is strictly Christian anymore," she answered finally. "I mean, I was raised to believe in Heaven and Hell. And I want to believe that there are consequences for the way that we love our lives, because I want to believe that there is some sort of punishment for people who do really terrible things in their lives."

"But," she added, "who gets to decide who is horrible and who isn't, then? If that's my stance, then I'm being the judge and jury, and I'm not. Nobody has the right to be that way."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't stop people from trying," Adam replied.

Clare chose to ignore him.

"What do_ you_ think?" she asked K.C.

He was quiet for awhile.

"I believe in _something_," he said at last. "I mean, not, like, an old man with a beard sitting on a cloud, throwing lightning bolts at us, or whatever. But yeah, I definitely think there's…something, out there. I mean, there has to be, right?"

"Wishful thinking," Clare remarked. "The need to believe in something bigger than us to make us feel like we're not just here for no reason at all. The need for a purpose. The existential question as to why we are all here on this world, living this particular moment."

When both boys turned to her with blank expressions, she shrugged. "Just putting that out there," she replied.

Adam snickered.

"I guess that's right," K.C. said thoughtfully.

Clare turned back to him.

"I mean, I kind of get what she means. Life is too fucked up and too beautiful at the same time for there NOT to be something," K.C. elaborated. "There's too many wonderful things and too many awful things at the same time. Besides," he pointed out, "death is so…anticlimactic. After a messy life, you want to believe in something that's better, right? We all suffer so much. Life is too much bullshit for there to NOT be something better after it all. Some kind of reward for us just being able to get through it all."

"Yeah, well, say what you will," Adam retorted. "But I think if there even was a God, he'd be a sucky comedian, where every joke has the same stupid punch line."


	9. Chapter 8

"_K.C.!"_

_Holly J's voice snaps him back to consciousness. He blinks for a moment, trying to wake himself out of a stupor. _

_Drew whacks him lightly upside the head. "Dude," he says, "you asleep in there?"_

_K.C. glares at him. "Hey man," he snaps, "I've gotten about forty minutes of sleep the past two days."_

"_The baby?" Drew asks._

_K.C. runs a hand through his hair tiredly. "She's got a cold."_

_Drew tries to look sympathetic, but all his look really says is that he's infinitely grateful that he's not K.C. right now._

_Holly J calls his name again, motioning for him. "I could use an extra hand here," she calls. "This banner won't hang itself."_

_K.C. sighs and goes over to help her hang the rest of the graduation banner. As he holds one corner, Holly J reaches up on the stepladder and fastens another corner to the wall._

"_There," she says, stepping back to admire the job. _

"_Does it look crooked to you?" she asks him, studying the banner with a scrutinizing expression._

_K.C. yawns. He could really care less about this stupid banner. He just wants to fall asleep somewhere- anywhere, he's not too picky at this point. He feels like a zombie._

"_It looks fine," he tells her._

_Holly J glares at him. "Well, sorry if this is boring you, Baby Daddy," she says briskly, "but graduation happens to be tomorrow afternoon, and this gym will be filled with people who will have something to say about it if this banner is crooked."_

"_Everything okay over here?" _

_Sav steps into their conversation. He takes one look at K.C.- the black bags under his eyes, the pasty skin, his messy hair and wrinkled clothes- and raises his eyebrows._

"_You alright, man?" he asks. "You look like the Walking Death."_

"_Thanks," K.C. replies sarcastically. _

"_Is it the baby?" Sav guesses._

_K.C. nods. "She's got a fever. Jenna and I haven't slept much."_

"_Then why are you here?" Sav asks. "Go home and nap. Or try to, anyway. We got it from here. The niners took care of most of the decorations."_

_K.C. rolled his eyes. "Believe me. If I could, I would. But Ms. Sauvé told me that if I don't finish the community service hours, she can't pass me into Grade 11."_

"_Seriously?" Sav says incredulously. "That's stupid. Can't they give you a pass? You did just have a baby and everything."_

"_I tried getting an extension," he replies. "But she says that with all the days I missed for Alex and all the work I had to make up, the only way she could approve passing me on is if I completed all the required community service hours." He rubs his tired eyes. "Only fifteen more hours to go," he says weakly._

_Sav looks at him again for a full minute with a thoughtful expression._

"_You know what," he says. "Give me the form. I'll sign off on your hours. You need to go home and sleep."_

_K.C.'s eyebrows shoot up. "Seriously?"_

"_Sav," Holly J cuts in, "we can't do that. It's lying, and cheating."_

"_Cut him some slack, HJ," Sav says. "Come on. His circumstances are a little different than everybody else."_

"_So he should get special treatment for being a Baby Daddy?" she asks in disbelief._

_K.C. just looks at her, and she seems to soften when she takes in his exhausted appearance._

"_Alright," she relents. "Fine. I'll sign off. Student council president and VP say that you completed your hours, you completed your hours. Just don't tell anybody, alright? This stays between the three of us."_

"_Got it," K.C. says gratefully, handing them the paper that logs his hours._

_Sav signs off on the bottom, then hands the paper to Holly J, who after just a brief moment of hesitation signs her own name next to his. _

"_I can't believe I just did that," she mutters, then goes back to looking at the banner._

_Sav hands him the paper. "Just hand that into Miss Sauvé and no one's the wiser," he tells him._

_K.C. nods. "Thanks again, man. You have no idea how cool this is."_

_Sav shrugs. "Hey," he reasons. "Some things are more important than school. Go home. Sleep. Be with the baby. Be a dad. That's bigger than this right now."_

_K.C. sighs. "I don't know how much help I'll be at home," he admits. "She's so miserable right now. All she does is cry. Jenna's not doing much better, either. She's so tired. We both are. It's just been nonstop crying for two days."_

_Sav gives him a compassionate smile._

"_She won't always be this way," he tries to reassure. "Just…hang in there, alright?"_

_K.C. smiles back. "Thanks, man."_

"K.C."

He glanced at Jenna, realizing that he hadn't heard a thing she'd just said.

She was propped up on one elbow in their bed, staring intently at the cell phone in her hand.

"I'm gonna call," she told him.

He sighed in exasperation, not for the first time tonight.

"Jenna," he said, his patience wearing thin. "Let it go, alright? She's probably asleep by now."

"I'm just gonna call and make sure," she muttered to herself, arching away as K.C. tried to grab the phone out of her hands.

"Stop it!" she shouted, making him scoot away from her in surprise. "I'm going to call my daughter, and tell her goodnight, okay?"

He arched his eyebrows in disbelief. "_Your _daughter?" he repeated.

Jenna ignored him, instead dialing K.C.'s home phone number.

"Lisa?" she asked. "Hey, it's Jenna. No, everything's fine. Yeah, we're having a good time. I just wanted to know…is Alex up?"

"Yeah? How is she?" A pause, and then Jenna's face loosened the slightest bit. "Really? That's great. I'm glad she ate it all. She usually doesn't. And she burped and everything?"

Jenna let out a tired laugh. "I know, I know," she told his mother. "I'm just, you know, freaking out. I miss her. I miss my baby."

K.C. watched her in surprise as tears began to form in the corners of Jenna's eyes. Wiping them away with the back of her hand, she sniffled and tried to make her voice as cheery as possible.

"Is it okay if I tell her goodnight?" Another sniff, as she held the phone away from her face. "Okay? Is she on?"

Jenna's voice suddenly became as soft and light as cotton candy.

"Hi, baby," she cooed. "Hi! Mommy misses you so so so much! She can't wait to see you. Are you being good? I miss you."

She pressed her lips to the receiver, closing her eyes as if she was actually kissing their daughter's soft skin, and this time, she couldn't hold back the choking sob that wracked her body.

K.C. reached up and wiped her falling tears away with the pad of his thumb. Jenna met his eyes, and then handed him the phone wordlessly. Holding Jenna's hand, he balanced the phone in the crook of his shoulder.

"Hi, baby girl," he murmured. "Daddy misses you. Daddy loves you."

He heard rustling on the other end, followed by the senseless jibber-jabber of Alex's voice, gurgles and whines and guttural clicks, strung together like beads. His own mother's voice, soothing her.

Christ, was that a lump in his throat?

Damn it, he wasn't going to get all girly and sentimental now.

"Be…" he paused, swallowing mightily. "Be good, okay? I love you. Good night."

After he hung up, Jenna's weeping began anew.

Feeling like a dope and not knowing what else to do, K.C. just put his arms around her, and she leaned into them as she bawled on his shoulder.

"Shhh," he whispered, rubbing her back slowly. "It's alright. Calm down. She's okay, Jenna. She's fine."

She sniffed again, wiping her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

"Did you remember to kiss her before you left?" she asked.

"Of course," he reassured, trying to remember whether or not he had.

Jenna seemed to believe him, thankfully.

"I think about it all the time," she said quietly. "Saying goodbye. Making sure I did it right."

He nodded, not sure where she was going with this.

"Do you think his parents did?" Jenna asked suddenly.

He blinked. "What?"

"Sav's parents," Jenna finished. Her voice broke a bit when she said his name, and she breathed deeply, trying to hold in tears. "Do you think they told him goodbye before he left that night?"

"Oh," he realized. "I'm sure they did."

"But what if they didn't?" Jenna argued. "What if they didn't say goodbye to him, and then he was dead and they never saw him again?" She broke into tears again, noisy, inelegant sobs that K.C. was worried would carry and concern the others.

"Jenna," he soothed, reaching for her again and smothering her cries into his shoulder. "Jenna, shh. We don't know that. They might have."

"But they might not," she sobbed.

K.C. didn't know what else to say, so he didn't say anything, just held her close and tried to quiet her crying.

"He's the only thing I think of, whenever I say goodbye to Alex," Jenna confessed. "All I can think of is if I never saw her again, and making sure that I say everything I need to, just in case I don't."

"She's fine, Jenna," K.C. whispered, sounding like a broken record.

"Yeah, and so was Sav," Jenna shot back.

She pulled away from him and lay down on the bed, burying her head in the pillow. K.C. lay down her and spooned against her body, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing kisses into the back of her neck, nuzzling her hair.

"I miss him so much," Jenna mumbled into the pillowcase.

"I know," he said softly. "I know."


	10. Chapter 9

Trailer parks," Adam said, placing his card down on the table.

"The Middle Ages," K.C. called, laying his down with flourish.

Clare studied her cards carefully, watching Eli's eyebrows waggle dramatically over her hand before she had to look away. It really wasn't doing much for her poker face.

"OJ," she said finally, putting her card in the middle of the table.

Eli looked delighted. "That's my girl," he said proudly.

"Oh, barf," Adam replied.

"Hey, come on," K.C. protested. "That's not fair. Favoritism. She's his girlfriend. Besides," he pointed out, "they're talking about the juice, not the guy. Look at the definition on the card."

"Splitting hairs, my friend," Eli said, waving his hand dismissively.

"He's got a point," Alli mused, coming down the stairs with a bathrobe and bare feet, a sweet, fresh-from-the-shower smell lingering from her skin like rose petals and her wet hair pulled back. She pulled up a chair in between Clare and K.C., studying the game intently. "I'd give it to K.C.. The Middle Ages is definitely the most risky."

"No way! Trailer parks," Adam argued.

"You're more likely to get the plague or killed by your own fleas in the Middle Ages," Alli reminded him.

"Hello? Have you ever been to a trailer park?"

"Adam," K.C. cut in. "Give it a rest. You lost."

"I say we evict Eli as judge," Alli announced. "We get a fair trial from someone else."

"Agreed," Adam said immediately. "Sorry, dude. I'm judge now."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me…" Eli groaned.

"Deal me in," Jenna called as she made their way down the stairs.

Even in the dim kitchen lights, Clare could see the swollen bags under Jenna's eyes and the redness of her face.

"Everything alright?" she asked.

K.C. shot her a worried look, but Jenna just nodded.

"Fine," she sniffed. "I'm just…missing the baby."

"Aww," Alli joked. "Baby Mama."

"Yeah," Jenna muttered, curling into the seat next to K.C.

"So…" K.C. said in an awkward, forcibly cheerful voice, "What's the name of the game?"

Adam grabbed a green card out of the pile and laid it down in the middle of the kitchen table.

"Absurd," he declared.

After some deliberation, they put their cards down on the table.

Clare studied her hand thoughtfully. "A fool and his money," she decided.

Jenna let out a small laugh as she let her own card down.

"Parenting," she said with a wry smile.

K.C. grinned slyly.

"Feminists," he joked, earning a smack from Alli and glares from Clare and Jenna.

Eli snickered. "Adam and Eve," he finished, his lips twitching as Clare rolled her eyes.

Adam considered all of them, then looked at Alli expectantly.

Alli considered her cards before setting one down. "Taxes," she stated.

Adam looked at each card carefully. "Tough choice," he admitted.

"I'm liking Jenna's," Alli said with a smile.

Jenna and K.C. exchanged knowing glances.

"Parenting," K.C. sighed. "A theatre of the absurd."

"Well, if you pick Jenna's," Eli put in, "then you have to pick Alli's, too. They're similar."

"How are they in any way similar?" Jenna argued.

"_Gone With The Wind,"_ Clare answered.

Everyone (save Eli) stared at her in confusion.

"_Death, taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them," _she clarified.

At their still-blank looks, she sighed. "It's in the book."

"I thought that was Ben Franklin who said that," Adam questioned.

"No," K.C. corrected. "Franklin said, '_nothing is certain except death and taxes'."_

He suddenly trailed off when he caught Alli's eye.

"Oh, god," he stammered. "Shit, Alli. I am…so, so sorry."

"No," Alli broke in quietly. "Don't worry. Don't be."

A pregnant silence fell over the table as Alli stared off into space, absorbed in her own thoughts.

"It's alright," she continued after a beat. "Really. It's alright. It's a good memory of him. This day."

Everyone else around the table visibly tensed. A year ago had been Sav's graduation day.

His last day alive.

"He was so happy," Alli went on, as if the tenseness didn't hang like a spider web woven between them. "Standing up there, giving that goofy speech. And I was so proud of him."

Her voice became quiet, pensive, as if she had forgotten there were people listening in.

"Because I wanted him to be like that," she explained. "I wanted him to be the best big brother ever- even if he was a total dork."

She smiled- small and sad, tears in her eyes, but a smile nonetheless.

"Because that's what he was," she finished, blinking back tears with her impossibly long lashes.

For a moment, everyone was still and silent. Jenna sniffled as quietly as she could, leaning against K.C. as he brushed his lips to the crown of her head and squeezed her shoulder, batting away tears of his own. Clare could feel tears beginning to rain their kamikaze flight down her skin as they dripped along her neck. Beside her, Eli was wholly absorbed in his own world of thought, staring into his drink with a blazing look that could sear through steel.

Finally, K.C. cleared his throat.

When everyone turned to look at him, he raised his can of beer in the air.

"To Sav," he declared.

After a brief instant, Eli raised his own can.

"To Sav," he answered

His shadowy gaze slid to Clare, who was wiping away the tears from the end of her nose.

"To Sav," she replied hoarsely.

Alli raised hers, with that same sad, dreamy smile on her face.

"To my brother."

Jenna finally put her drink forward.

"To Sav," she said, fighting back another sob as the tears flowed freely.

With a sad note of finality, their drinks clinked together in unison.


	11. Chapter 10

When their makeshift game of Apples to Apples had ended, Clare headed up for a shower and everyone else went off to bed. Jenna and K.C. were in the upstairs guest bedroom, down the hall from the master that Clare and Eli shared. Alli was sleeping in the nearly closet-sized guest bedroom with two twin beds, but Adam slept on the pull-out couch in the family room, none too keen on sharing a room with a girl.

Eli closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of cedar and linen, trying to put the thought out of his mind that he was in his girlfriend's grandparents' old bedroom, sleeping with her in their bed.

He heard the bathroom door open as Clare emerged, a mirage of steam and light. Still damp from her shower, her wet curls matted to a seal-brown color and her skin flushed from the hot water, she crawled into bed beside him, spooning against his backside and hooking her arms around his belly. She buried her face into the back of his neck, nuzzling the nape of his spine and sending shivers all the way down until he could feel a familiar pulse between his legs. Her lips pressed against the nape of his neck, tracing the freckles on his shoulders like a constellation she formed along his collarbone.

"I guess somebody's having a better time," he whispered.

Clare didn't answer, but instead gripped him tighter and began kissing him more deeply, her breath hot and damp on his shoulders.

Eli rolled over on his side to face her, though in the darkness of the bedroom he could only make out her face in sparse bits. He took the hand that had been wrapped around him and held it in his own, taking the other and wrapping it around her waist.

Clare pulled closer to him, until their bodies were flush against one another. Even when there was not an inch of space left between them, she still kept rustling against him, like she was trying to seal off any distance that might still be trying to open up. It was as if she was trying to burrow under his skin.

To his surprise, one of her hands went down to the hem of his sleep pants, slipping under the waistband and groping down.

Eli reached into his boxer shorts and pulled her hand out before it could go any more southward.

"Whoa, whoa," he said, holding her hand in a tight grasp. "Whoa. Clare. What's going on?"

Clare tugged away from him, rolling away so her back was to him, pulling herself into a fetal position and tucking her chin to her knees.

Eli propped himself up one elbow, tugging the blanket away from her face and touching her shoulder gently.

"Clare…"

She shrunk like a hermit crab, diving deeper into herself as she closed away from him.

"Clare," he said, bending over her and brushing the hair from her face. "Clare, what's going on?"

He couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard her sniffling.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled into her pillow.

He bent closer to her, straining to hear her. "Why?"

When she didn't answer, he said, "Clare. If you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't help you."

She finally turned to him.

"You can't," she whispered.

He took her hands in his. "What can't I do?"

Clare didn't answer him again, but brushed closer to him, wrapping her legs around his and both of her arms around his neck.

"_Eli…what can I do?"_

The words flashed back to him as Clare determinedly pressed herself against him, her head on the shelf of his jawline and collarbone.

The anniversary of Julia's death, when he had cried and begged Clare to stay, afraid of what would happen to him- of what he might be able to do to himself- if she left him alone to drown in all of that sadness.

The night he'd told her of his suicide attempt.

In all honestly, Eli didn't remember much of that night. He had been in so much of a haze that day, the grim certainty and resolution washing out everything else that had gone on as insignificant and time-wasting. He remembered getting the pills, sneaking the whiskey out of Bullfrog's liquor cabinet, and how, as he made his way up the stairs to his bedroom for what he believed was the last time ever, how his whole body seemed to slant sideways- like there had been an enormous weight attached to one side and it had been pulling him in one direction this whole time, and now that it was gone, he was beginning to topple off-balance.

Although it made him sick to do it, he tried to think of a single memory that involved actually _taking_ the pills, but try as he might, he couldn't. All he really remembered was sitting down on his floor, the pills in one hand and the bottle in the other, crying so hard that he couldn't breathe or speak or even see, really.

But it wasn't a sad kind of crying. It was just…defeated.

He had nothing else to give. He was done. He was used up. Everything he was, was gone, and he'd never, ever be able to get it back. There wasn't anything else to hang on to anymore- whatever Eli had been, that person was gone for good now.

He had always been so sure of who he was, but that had all changed with the screech of tires and the sickening crunch of metal churning on metal.

_If he wasn't who he was, than who was he, now?_

_Didn't matter. _

That was what he remembered the most. That complete hopelessness; that feeling of realizing that the real Eli, who ever _that_ person had been, wasn't going to die that night. It was this imposter, this ventriloquist who had shoved his hand inside of Eli, ripped his own heart out, and replaced it with his hand, emptying him of everything he was so that he no longer had any control over his own life, but became a puppet, sleepwalking day-to-day and speaking pre-scripted phrases to everything around him because he no longer had the heart to put anything into life anymore.

He remembered that his hands had shook, the slightest little tremor, right before he tossed the pills into his mouth, and that a little bit of whiskey had dribbled down his chin like drool as he downed gulp after gulp like a man dying of thirst.

And then…

Nothing.

He didn't even remember feeling peaceful at the thought of death. It wasn't like he had done it to be with Julia, or anything crazy like that. No. Julia was dead, and to him, dead was dead. Gone. Forever. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, all that. Nothing left. We just…vanish. No heaven, hell, purgatory, all that bullshit people are spoon-fed. There was just…nothing. A black hole.

All he could really do was sit there, a strange calm taking place inside of him. Like the subsequent silence after a tornado that rips the sky apart, all he felt now was numb from head to toe. But, he had mused,_ that_ wasn't any big shock. All he'd felt was numb, ever since Julia died. Numb was the only thing he'd felt for an entire year, because he didn't feel _anything_ at all. Eli wasn't really Eli anymore.

The last thing Eli could really remember about that night- well, one of the last things- was thinking that it didn't matter when his body would eventually die from this. He had been dead a long time. You couldn't live very long without a heart.

"I don't know if I can do this," he heard Clare whisper suddenly.

Her voice brought him back to the present. He blinked at her, curled like an inchworm in their bed, her arms still tight around his neck and her ear against his heart, a hammer under cloth.

"Can't do what?" he murmured into her hair.

Clare looked up at him, her eyes red. "You being gone."

His mother had come up to check on him, who knows how much later. His mind had still been in a fog, and he hadn't noticed that she had been yelling for him, or that she had even into his room until she was kneeling in front of him, her eyes wild in sheer panic, grabbing his face in her hands and screaming directly at him, words he could barely comprehend or hear.

"_Oh my god, oh my god, oh Christ, oh my god…Eli, baby? Baby? Baby, please talk to me! Oh, god, oh god, oh god…ARTHUR!"_

To his knowledge, his mother never called his father by his first name- always Bullfrog or simply "Bull". But here she was, screaming "Arthur!" at the top of her voice, running down the stairs.

After a moment, his father had appeared, looking ready to throw up and knock him into unconsciousness at the same time.

"_Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus FUCKING Christ, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh Jesus Christ fuck oh God, Eli, Eli, what the fuck did you do? Eli! Fuck, what did you do? Oh Jesus Christ!"_

Then he'd just dropped to his knees, and pulled Eli into such a vice-like hold that it was all he could do to breathe as he shook in his father's arms. One of Bullfrog's large, meaty hands- nearly the size of Eli's skull- wrapped around his body, and his father's chin rested on the horizon of his head, pulling him into Bullfrog's collarbone so tightly he could smell the wine and steak on his father's breath from dinner.

Bullfrog's cursing had stopped by this point, and now he just knelt on the floor, his arms around Eli, brushing the fringe of his hair with his fingers like he had when Eli was a baby and refused to go to sleep. The touch had mesmerized him as an infant, lulling him into a silent trance, but that night all it had made him do was cry harder- graceless, inelegant, gasping sobs that made him shake so violently he couldn't sit up straight any longer.

"_Shhh, shhh, shh, baby, shhh, I got ya…shhh, shhhh. I got ya, it's alright, I got ya, you're gonna be alright, shh, baby, I got ya, shh…"_

His father had just held him, rocking him like he was still a colicky newborn, uttering words he had not said to Eli since he had been one. It took a moment of him trembling uncontrollably in Bullfrog's arms for Eli to realize that the tremors he felt weren't just coming from him- Bullfrog was doing the same.

And right before the ambulance had pulled into their driveway, sirens wailing loudly enough to temporarily drown out his wails, his father had kissed his forehead, something Eli was positive his father had not done in nearly 15 years.

"I'm not going anywhere."

He kicked himself at his words, knowing he'd probably never said anything stupider.

"Of course you are," Clare sniffed.

He knew this had been coming.

"I'm not going just yet."

"But you're still going."

He sighed. "Clare, I know that. That doesn't mean I'm going to be gone forever."

Her voice broke as she said, "you might as well be."

Eli's eyes widened. He pushed Clare back from him a little bit, studying her face closely.

"Clare," he asked very carefully, "you don't want to break up, do you?"

Her words jolted through her like he'd literally shocked her. She hopped away from him, accidentally kicking him in the stomach in her haste to get away.

"I knew you would want that," she cried, bursting into fresh tears.

Eli hastily got up and put an arm around her, but she pulled away.

"Clare, believe me, that's the last thing I want."

"Then why would you even suggest it?" she wailed back.

"Because," he said, keeping his hands at his side with great effort, "I thought _you_ did."

"Why would you think that?"

"I don't know, Clare. You still won't tell me what's wrong."

"I already did!" she shouted, and Eli paused, waiting for the others to come charging in at the sound of her voice. When nobody did, he breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to her.

"Clare," he soothed, using a tone one normally reserved for crying children and startled animals, "you know that that's not the only reason you're upset, right?"

She didn't answer, but kept crying and turned her head away from him, tracing the patchwork quilt pattern of the bedspread with her eyes instead.

"We never really talked about him," he said, still in that same tone of voice. "About…Sav."

Even now, it hurt to say that name. Not as much as it had to bring up Julia, but he still felt that same spasm of pain, albeit much smaller and less intense, that he used to feel (and still did feel, on occasion) whenever he brought her memory to mind.

Clare tried to gain control of herself enough to speak.

"What's there to talk about?" she said. "He's gone."

After a moment, she whispered again, more to herself than to him, "He's gone."

"He's gone. He's never coming back, ever, and there's nothing we can do about it," she went on. Her voice kept rising with each word, the decibels growing like moving up a flight of stairs, but she just went on, and Eli let her, knowing she needed to get this off her chest.

"He'll never be able to do anything with his life, and it's such a fucking waste. 18 years old, and it's like he never lived at all. And he was SO good; I mean, really, he was one of the best people I knew. He was so nice to me whenever I was over and always took the time to talk to me…" she paused to wipe her nose on her sleeve, "and now he's dead, and nobody will ever know that he was even here except us."

Too overcome to continue, Clare's head hung down.

Eli sidled a little closer to her, inch by inch, until he hesitantly wrapped his arms around her. He held his arms awkwardly around her body for a moment, afraid that Clare wouldn't want to be touched, but instead she just leaned into them and let herself go boneless against him, so Eli took her lead and laid down beside her under the covers, brushing her hair out of her eyes and kissing the tracks the tears had left behind on her face.

He finished with a soft kiss on the lips, the most gentle one they'd ever shared.

"Thank you for that," Clare sighed, burrowing closer to him and resting her head on his chest, her ear placed right against his heart.

"I won't leave you," he replied.

"But you will," Clare argued, clamoring around until she was directly on top of him. "Don't say that you aren't, because you will. You're going to leave, and I'll be alone. And don't say that I'll have Adam," she shot back, before Eli could even open his mouth, "because we won't be the same, not without you here. We'll both be messed up when you're gone."

Another sob crossed over her face, but she bit down on her lower lip fiercely, holding it back.

"My dad got a job in Colorado," she said.

This was news to him. "Really?"

She nodded, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. "He's moving there at the end of the summer."

Oh, Eli realized. So not only was this weekend hitting her, but the prospect of losing both Eli and her father was coming to mind.

Clare fought back another sniffle and continued. "He got laid off from his last job because his company got bought out, and they could only keep a few employees. But a few weeks after he left work, he got a call from another company he had interviewed with before the buy-out, and they offered him the same position at their corporate headquarters in Denver."

"And he's moving in September?"

She nodded, biting on her lip so hard Eli was surprised it didn't bleed. "He's actually going to move sometime in late July, because he needs to get an apartment down there before his work starts in September."

Clare's voice trailed off, and now she glanced out the window next to their bed.

"He'll leave me, too."

Eli propped himself up on the head board and slid his hands over hers.

"He's leaving," Clare whispered. "You're leaving."

His grip tightened over hers.

"My parents moved out," she continued. "Darcy left. Even K.C. left me."

Her tears began anew. "Everyone leaves. You can't rely on anyone but yourself, because all anyone ever does is go away and leave you all alone."

Eli pulled her back down on top of him, one hand running through her tangled hair and the other stroking her back. "That's not true."

"Julia left you," she pointed out.

He stilled for a moment, then loosened his hold on her, tilting her face to his and kissing her between the eyes.

"And I found you," he reminded her.

"But you're going to leave again!" she pointed out, circling the conversation back to where it began. Her tears dripped salty and scalding onto his chest.

Eli sighed. "Look, Clare. I don't know what to say that's going to convince you that we won't break up when I go to school. I hate that I'm going to be away from you, but we'll both make it work, because we both feel the same. And we'll be alright. It's not going to be easy, but we'll do what we need to, because that's what's how it's gotta be."

He let her digest the words for a moment, then felt the knot in his stomach loosen slightly when she grinned through her tears.

"That was so corny," she teased.

He grinned, relieved at her joking. "Hey, I was trying to be soothing. Don't tease."

"You been planning that for awhile?"

"Maybe."

She laughed, then bent down for a kiss, much more contented and satisfying than their chaste, almost prude-ish one from earlier. Clare laid back down on top of him, lacing her fingers with his.

"I'm such a mess right now," she said.

"Like I was the paragon of sanity when I did that to _you_."

"True," Clare admitted. "But I still hate that it hurts me so much."

"You just don't want to get hurt again." He rested his head on hers. "Nobody does."

"I know. But I wanted this trip to be fun. I can't exactly do that with me crying and being all broody. That's usually your job."

He smirked into her hair.

"Well," he taunted, "just because we had a soap opera moment doesn't mean we can't still have some fun…"

Clare raised her eyebrows, knowing where this was going. Eli rolled her over so that he was poised on top of her, and bent his head to the hem of her night shirt. Very slowly, he began lifting the fabric bit by bit, his lips grazing each new bit of exposed skin, slightly dusted with new sun-kiss, leaving a wet trail of prints from her waist to in between her breasts to the divot of her neck.

When he had made it all the way to her jawbone, Clare's arms went up over her head, and without a word between them he slipped off her shirt, lying their bare chests flat against one another.

"Eli." Clare's voice was in his ear, no more than a puff of steam.

He nodded, making his way back down her body by touching every place he had just kissed. While Clare's arms roamed like a pianist's across his back, his hands moved down the line from the bottom of her breasts to the flat plane of her belly, and eventually the dip of her waist to the rise of her hip, slipping beneath the thin strip of her panties. Her breath hitched, and their eyes locked. Neither one of them dared blink as he slipped into her.

Clare let out a moan as he moved his way through her, arching her back off the bed as her orgasm took over. When she finished riding it out, she grabbed Eli's hand with one arm and used the other to grip the waist band of his shorts again.

Eli looked at her, studying for any hesitation, let her hands drift to his waist, the legs of his sleep pants tangling with his limbs.

"These are so hard to get off," Clare giggled. "I feel like they're chastity pants or something."

"This coming from the girl who wears a purity ring."

"Shut up," she growled in a much sexier tone than Eli knew she possessed. When finally the pants were down at his ankles, he kicked them off furiously, and positioned himself on top of her.

Giving her one more look to make sure she was absolutely certain this was what she wanted, he pushed through her, lowering his body so that his head was flat against the beat of her heart.

They moved together seamlessly, like cogs in a well-tuned machine. He thrust deeper inside her, and she tilted her eyes up towards the ceiling of his bedroom and focused on the unreadable blackness, losing herself in the rhythm their bodies made. And when they came together, finishing at the exact same moment, their bodies spilled into one another entirely, for a brief moment molding their flesh into one like liquid metal being poured into a mold.

_Guess the Bible wasn't so much of a fallacy,_ Eli thought briefly, as he paused a moment on top of Clare's thundering heart, enjoying the feeling of just being still and calm inside her. _Flesh melding together. Two become one._

After they had finished, lying on top of one another skin on skin, he pulled out of her, and they placed a stream of gentle kisses all over each other's bodies. Each kiss they shared was like an emblem stamped across their bodies, every movement of their hands a cartographer mapping out a region peak by valley.

And with every movement they made, Eli knew that Clare was just as aware as he was about what exactly they were writing all over one another:

_Oh, look at you. Look what you've made me in to. Look what you've done to me._


	12. Chapter 11

When he was certain that he wouldn't be disturbed, Eli grabbed a blanket and crept back downstairs, tiptoeing through the family room so he wouldn't wake Adam. Pushing open the screen door to the back porch lightly, he closed it as noiselessly as possible, holding his breath for a bit when it squeaked on its rusted hinges. Thankfully, he couldn't hear any feet padding towards him, so he released the breath he had been holding and pulled up one of the metal chairs from around the little table and wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

It was a cold night, but not windy, which meant that the smell probably wouldn't carry. Perfect. The less questions he got about it, the better.

Reaching deep into his pocket, Eli pulled out something he hadn't seen or used in nearly eight months- a pack of Camel 100s and a black lighter with a skull carved into the handle. Striking the pad of his thumb against the hilt of the lighter, he lit the cigarette and breathed deeply, inhaling the smell that was so comfortably and terribly familiar all at once.

Eli hadn't admitted this to anyone- not even Adam knew he did this, as far as he knew.

It wasn't as if he was ashamed of it- and truly, he wasn't. People had their vices, and some habits you just couldn't kick, no matter how hard you tried. Eli knew enough about addictions to know that smoking wasn't something he had a serious problem with. It was just something that, every now and then, he needed to do in order to burn out some thoughts, or relieve some tension from somewhere deep inside his body that nothing- not his therapist's suggestions that he had made progress, not Adam's constant, unwavering friendship, not Clare's devotion- could seem to loosen the way a few puffs of a cigarette could.

Honestly, it wasn't even habitual. Okay, maybe for awhile, right after Julia's death, when his whole life had completely fallen apart and he'd gone off the rails and started pushing people away left and right, he'd been a pack-a-day smoker; two packs, sometimes, even. But even that had gotten old after some time, not to mention expensive.

And anyways, after his…suicide attempt

_(God, it was still so hard to say that. It sounded like such a cliché, something straight out of YA novel or a poorly written teen melodrama. But that's what it was, and there was no other way to get it out there)_

his parents had combed through his stuff- or as much of it as they could, although this was in the days before his hoarding had spun completely out of control- and gotten rid of anything that they thought might be a way for Eli to harm himself. They'd found his lighter and confiscated it, and even though Eli could have easily bought another, the whole smoking thing had pretty much lost its edge for him by then.

Nowadays, Eli hardly ever thought of smoking anymore. He'd stopped when he started dating Clare, though a couple of times he'd snuck a few contraband puffs when he'd really needed it. It had been almost a year, though, and he hadn't smoked a single cigarette since.

Until now.

He'd had a feeling this would happen.

If Clare had known that he'd brought these- if she knew that he did it at all- she would have called it a "self-fulfilling prophecy". But it was more than that. He just knew he would need these, because he knew what this weekend meant to everyone.

Christ, if anyone understood it, he did, better than anyone. He understood just how impossible grief could be.

Again, Sav's face- and Julia's- zinged across his mind like a flashing neon advertisement.

Eli leaned his head back and stared up at the stars overhead. It looked as if they began and ended right over the lake house, as if they were just coming out specifically for them on this night. A blanket of stars to wish them goodnight, covering the sky above their heads like netting.

_But is it holding the sky together_, Eli wondered, _or pulling it apart?_

As much as he hated clichés, he had to admit, staring at the stars _did_ make him feel pretty small. Like all the petty shit he spent so much time getting worked up over and everything that drove him crazy or mattered to him at all was really nothing at all.

Their lives really were _so_ insignificant.

Sav had only been 18 years old, Julia 15. Both of them, dead and buried, gone forever before they'd ever really gotten a chance to live. They would never be able to grow up and experience anything. No sense to it, no point.

What good had their lives been, if all they had done was end in grief?

As much as he loved Clare, a part of him knew he would probably love Julia forever. She had been his first love, and as crazy as he knew it sounded now, he had honestly believed they would be together forever, and that he'd found the love of his life at 14 years old.

He knew that he would never trade his time with her for anything in the world. But it also came at a price. Every happy memory came paradoxically with the irreversible, suffocating sadness that she was never coming home to him.

What meaning had their lives had, if the happy memories of both Sav and Julia would always be tagged with so much suffering?

"Oh."

A small sound made him jump, startled. He'd thought that everyone would be asleep by now. Whipping around, he saw Alli standing hesitantly in the doorway.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "I…I thought you were upstairs with Clare."

"I'm not," he said stupidly, wishing he could extinguish the cigarette and realizing he hadn't brought some kind of ash tray.

Alli eyed the cigarette with curiosity. "I didn't know you smoked."

Eli shrugged. "It's not really a habit. It's just a thing I do. Sometimes."

"Does Clare know?'

"Why, are you gonna tell?" he snapped, then felt bad for his tone as Alli raised her eyebrows at him.

"No," he said more gently. "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell her, okay? It's none of her business, and it's none of yours, either."

"Whatever," she said flippantly. "It isn't."

To his surprise, she pulled up the seat next to him and sat down.

Eli groaned inwardly. As much as he knew that he needed to be nice to Alli- especially this weekend- she wasn't exactly his favorite person in the world. Sometimes, he wondered why she and Clare were even friends; it seemed like they had absolutely nothing in common.

"It's so quiet out," she murmured, drawing her knees close to her chest.

Eli nodded and blew out another puff of smoke.

"Clare told me about your girlfriend," Alli said, apropos of nothing.

His hand holding the cigarette stilled in mid-air.

"Ex-girlfriend," Alli corrected. She looked at him with wide, glassy eyes, filled with tears that refused to fall. "I'm so, so sorry."

Eli had a response on the tip of his tongue, but the one that came out surprised him.

"So am I," he sighed.

"How do you deal with it?" she asked in a rush. "How _did_ you deal with it?"

He shook his head sadly.

"I didn't, really," he confessed. "Sort of spun out. Got lost." He took another puff of his cigarette. "Not advertising it, believe me."

She considered his words. "How did you get out of it?"

The answer was simple. "Clare."

Alli's face softened. Tears slipped down her cheeks.

"That's so great," she whispered, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her robe. "Really."

They were silent for a moment, both of them staring out over the lake.

"I know you don't really think much of me," Alli said softly. "But I want you to know that I'm happy for you guys." She looked up at him. "Really, I am. You make her so happy. So…I'm glad."

Eli nodded. "And I don't hate you," he replied.

Alli smiled. "Well, I don't hate you, either."

She then asked, in a much smaller, child-like voice, "Can I ask you something?"

"Kind of already are," he said.

"How," she said, then stopped, and seemed to be changing directions mid-thought. "Is it…always going to feel like this?"

He knew exactly what she meant.

"Depends," he said candidly. "Yeah, it will. Some days will be easier than others, but for the most part…it's always going to be hard. Especially days like today. They just don't get any easier."

"That's what I was afraid of," Alli said. "I'm sorry. This must be really awful for you to talk about."

"It is for you, too, now," Eli reminded gently.

Alli just snorted.

"I'm so pissed off at him," she said suddenly. "It's weird. I am just so fucking pissed off."

"I mean," she continued. "I mean, there is SO MUCH that he's still here for. There's me, there's my parents, his bedroom, his clothes- I mean, what the fuck am I supposed to do with all of his clothes? Give them away? Who would want them, anyway? They're all these dumbass rockstar tees and ugly vests and shit. I mean, somebody needs to tell me what I'm supposed to DO with all of it? How do I deal with it, with him? I'm just SO pissed. I want to kill him."

She wiped the tears she hadn't realized had begun to fall away, and rested her head on her knees, holding her entire body close to her chest.

"I wish I could bring him back," she told Eli, "and then kill him again, just so I can see how angry he's made me."


	13. Chapter 12

"_You gonna head out?" Adam asks._

_Sav pulls on his jacket and grabs his car keys. "Yeah," he says. "Gotta head home. Lots of family coming in tomorrow. Big graduation party and everything."_

"_You need any help loading your stuff up?" he offers._

"_Yeah," Sav replies. "Sure. That'd be great. Can you actually help me with this?"_

_Adam reaches down and grabs the other side of the speaker. _

"_One, two, three," Sav counts, "lift."_

_With a grunt, the two of them haul the black speaker off the floor of Fiona's foyer and carry it to Sav's car, loading it in the trunk._

"_All set?" Adam pants._

"_That's about it," he says. "You and Drew need a ride home? I can give you a lift, drop you off on my way."_

"_Naw, it's cool, man," Adam tells him. "Riley and Zane are leaving in, like, ten minutes, and Riley said he could drop us off."_

"_Alright, well, we should definitely hang out sometime," Sav says. "You know. Jam to Dead Hand. Maybe go to a local concert."_

"_Yeah, definitely," Adam agrees. "I'm here all summer. Just give me a call whenever."_

_Sav nods. _

"_Later, dude," he waves, climbing into his truck._

_Adam waves back. _

"_Later," he calls, but by this time, Sav has already pulled out of the parking lot of Fiona's complex, his taillights disappearing in the darkness as he turns the corner, and then is out of sight completely_

Adam ran his fingers through his wet hair and pulled a hoodie on, checking his reflection in the mirror. Yep, he'd definitely gotten some sun yesterday, and it made him look like freaking Santa Claus, with the jolly red face and all. Damn it. He'd need more sun block for today.

Even from the bathroom, he could smell the bacon grease and fresh coffee sailing under the door from the next room, making his stomach mutter and rumble, so he gave himself a cursory once-over and headed towards the kitchen.

Alli stood at the stovetop, still in her PJs and frying pan in hand.

"Morning, sleepyhead," she greeted cheerfully. "I made coffee."

"Ugh," Adam groaned sleepily, "A: you sound _way_ too cheerful for this early, and B: you sound like you're my wife when you say that."

"Come on in," she urged. "Sit down. I made my favorite breakfast. Bhandari Breakfast of Champs." She scooped a plate of sizzling bacon and eggs onto Adam's plate and pushed it towards him eagerly. "Go on. Try some. I made enough for everybody."

Adam yawned and grabbed a forkful, putting it into his mouth with some hesitation.

"Man," he said in between chews, "this is actually pretty good!"

"What's good?" came a voice.

"Something smells delicious," said another.

Eli and K.C. came into the kitchen, Eli in the same clothes he wore last night. From the look on his face, Adam could tell he hadn't slept much, if at all, and if he smelled carefully, he thought he could catch a whiff of cigarette smoke.

Great. He should have known Eli would start doing that again- especially now, of all times.

(As if he didn't know about it. Really, did Eli think he was born yesterday?)

"You alright, dude?" he asked, trying to sound as level and unconcerned as possible.

Eli grunted monosyllabically in his general direction, pouring himself a cup of coffee and taking the seat beside him.

"Try some of my Bhandari Breakfast of Champs," Alli said, holding out a plate to him.

Eli held up a hand. "I think I'll just stick to coffee for now."

"I'll take some," K.C. said, reaching for it. "Mmmm, smells so good."

"Where's Clare?" Alli asked, setting aside a plate for herself.

She was glancing at Eli, but K.C. surprised everyone by speaking up.

"She went on an early morning walk," he said. "I saw her down by the lake a little while ago."

"Why'd you wake up so early?" Adam asked.

"Ask me that again when you have a baby," he said with a dry laugh.

Adam looked down at his plate awkwardly, while Alli and Eli looked into their coffee cups in silence. After a moment, K.C. realized his faux pas and blushed, suddenly very invested in eating his eggs.

"You know," Alli said casually after a stiff moment, "when I was little, I used to think that if I ate eggs, a chicken would hatch in my stomach."

When nobody spoke, she went on. "That's why I never ate them. I was always worried that the chicken would peck out my insides when it got big enough."

Eli snickered, then began coughing, as coffee went down the wrong pipe. Adam clapped him between the shoulder plates, while Eli took a few deep breaths.

"Sounds like a horror movie that Paris Hilton would star in," he wheezed, his eyes streaming.

"More like Rugrats," Adam laughed.

When everyone looked at her blankly, Adam's eyes widened.

"You know, the one where Chuckie eats the watermelon seed and thinks it'll grow in his stomach," he explained. "Seriously, guys? You NEVER watched the Rugrats?"

"It's been about ten years or so," Eli replied.

"I didn't really watch a ton of TV as a kid," K.C. said. "That's what happens when you're bounced around foster homes and group homes."

"My parents never let me watch cartoons," Alli sighed. "It was always educational stuff."

Adam shook his head sadly. "You all have such sad lives."


	14. Chapter 13

A shadow loomed over her, and then before she could open her eyes, lips accompanied by breath that smelled strongly of coffee and bacon met hers and a hand ran over her forehead, brushing her sleep-tangled hair off her face.

Clare startled slightly, her arms swinging out automatically as she tried to sit upright. When she opened her eyes, Eli was squatting beside her, rolling his eyes.

"Remind me never to try and be romantic," he joked. "Thanks for nearly blinding me, by the way."

"You startled me," she shot back, laughing. "Did I really get you that bad?"

"I don't know how I'll recover," he said, sitting down next to her and dangling his legs over the water.

"Sure is a nice morning," he said conversationally.

Clare nodded. "It's warming up. Probably good swimming weather later. I want to go in today. You know, without actually being dragged in."

He grinned at her, his messy mop of hair falling rakishly into his eyes.

"You sleep alright?" she asked lightly.

He nodded, not meeting her eyes. "After our aerobics, you mean?"

"Eli," she said, and this time, he looked at her with her serious tone.

He shrugged. "I slept fine."

"Are you sure? Because you weren't there when I woke up this morning. And I woke up really early." She fiddled with the straps on the jacket she'd borrowed from him. "Is everything okay?"

He nodded. "I'm sure. I just went for a walk. Just needed to clear my head."

"Me, too," she replied.

They were quiet for a moment, watching the sun ripple on the water.

"I was trying to remember the last time I talked to him," Eli said suddenly.

"You don't remember?"

He shook his head. "I remember seeing him at Fi's party and all, but I can't remember if I really talked to him. Cause I with you, like, all night. And when I wasn't with you, I was talking to Adam and Fiona. Or playing beer pong. I don't remember having a conversation with him that night. I can't remember the last time we actually spoke."

He hung his head. "I just really wish I could."

Clare nodded, biting her lip as a lump began to form in her throat for what felt like the millionth time this weekend. She knew where he was coming from; his last conversation with Julia had been a bitter, pointless fight, and now he had to live with that. Now he was trying to construct his last memory of Sav, and nothing was coming to mind.

Not, she thought, that anything would. That was the thing.

Because, in all honestly, she couldn't remember _her_ last conversation with him, either.

She remembered seeing him at Fiona's party, along with Holly J, but when pressed, she couldn't say she remembered actually having a conversation with either one of them. Or if she did, it had been something polite and really insignificant, all the important topics left behind temporarily so they could suspend their impending adulthood and party like they didn't have a care in the world, at least for that night.

Who knew what their last conversation together, just the two of them, had been about. It could have been about something as insignificant as drapes, for all she knew.

Sav's death had snuck up on all of them. One minute he was there, alive and warm and real, a solid presence, part of their world, and the next, he was nothing but an image in their minds, one that was fading like a folded photograph with every day that passed. He wasn't alive anymore- just in pictures, and in their memories. Like an urban myth, like he'd never lived at all.

And he hadn't, truthfully. He'd died when he was 18 years old, just hours after accepting his diploma. Dead because of a drunk driver, or a deer running across the road, or a swerve of the tires, or a moment's inattention- the cause of the accident that had flipped his truck had never been determined, so they would never know what really happened that night.

God, it was all so senseless. It made her want to cry and scream and just curl into bed and fall asleep with the shades drawn and the covers drawn all at once, like she had when she first found out of his death.

_If any of us really knew what was coming,_ Clare thought, _how many of us would ever actually get out of bed in the morning? Or would we all just lie there and decide it just wasn't worth it to bear so much sorrow?_

"Wow, really, guys?" came a voice from behind them.

They both turned, and saw Adam walking down the dock to meet them.

"You _do_ know that it's only, like, ten AM, right? Too early to start getting into each other's pants?"

"Adam," she reproached, smacking him on the knee as he squeezed himself between the two of them.

"Sorry this weekend didn't turn out the way you wanted it to," Eli told him.

Adam shrugged, picking at a hole in his jeans. "It's alright, I guess. It all worked out, right?"

"Yeah, but still. I know this wasn't really what you had in mind. And it _was_ your idea to begin with."

"Yeah, well…" he shrugged again. "It is what it is, you know?"

"No, not really," Eli said.

"What does that mean, anyway?" Clare questioned.

"Life," Adam explained. "People trying to make things work and make life go on and make life work. We run into so many obstacles and we just gotta get through it."

He picked off some loose threads from his pants and flicked them into the lake water lazily. "Life. You try and live it."

Clare took a moment to digest his words, tumbling them around in her mind like clothes in a dryer. Then Eli let out a snorting laugh, and Adam shot him a dirty look.

"What?" he shot back.

Eli snickered. " 'Life. You try and live it'?" he quoted.

"Yeah," Adam said. He mockingly threw his hands up in the air. "Go life!"

Eli laughed harder. "Can I put that on a bumper sticker?"

Adam whacked him in the stomach. "Shut up, asshole."


	15. Chapter 14

**Author's Note: Sorry, Snob. I know this is the one chapter you're not crazy about. I know we disagree on this, but I still wanted this in here. Hope you'll still enjoy reading. And thanks for all your help with this, of course. I couldn't have written this without your story and your help.**

K.C. gently pushed the door to his and Jenna's bedroom with his knuckles, peering in through the crack in the doorway. When he saw that Jenna was awake in the bed, cell phone in hand, he pushed the door open all the way and came in brandishing the plate of eggs and glass of OJ.

"Wakey-wakey," he teased. "Eggs and bacon. And OJ. But not the kind that kills blondes. The good kind."

Jenna smiled tiredly, out of courtesy, but stared at her cell phone, not really paying attention to him.

K.C. set the plate and cup down on the bedside table and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, sidling next to her in the bed.

"What time is it?" Jenna asked.

"Around eleven. You slept late."

"Yeah," she agreed, still absorbed in her phone.

K.C. looked over her shoulder, making out the text message she was writing. "Alex alright?"

Jenna nodded. "Your mom said she slept through the night and everything. She's fine."

Jenna closed the phone and set it down in her lap, her head resting on K.C.'s shoulder.

"I had the weirdest dream last night," she murmured.

"Oh yeah?"

"Mmmhmm." She grabbed his free hand, lacing her fingers with his. "I dreamed I was in this room. It wasn't a stage or anything, but for some reason, this band was doing a concert in it. It was just a room. And I was sitting on the floor watching them. And I was taking pictures of it. But then, the lead singer, she saw me. She grabbed my hand, took my camera, and pulled me up to dance with them. But by the time I was standing up and dancing, I was all alone. The audience, the band, everything- it was all gone. And it was just me. All alone in this room, dancing to no music."

They lay together in the daylight, still early, sunlight slipping through the slatted blinds like a secret demanding to be uncovered, filling in the curves of one another's bodies as seamlessly as jigsaw pieces.

"Do you remember," Jenna whispered in the flickering shadows, "the scare we had the Christmas I was pregnant with her?"

How could K.C. forget that?

"Christmas Eve, Grade 10," he intoned. "Of course not. That was the night we found out we were having a girl."

Christmas Eve that year, they had all been gathered at Lisa and K.C.'s apartment. Things hadn't exactly been straight between the two families- okay, more like Kyle was still fighting off homicidal feelings towards K.C. for everything he had just put his little sister through- but Lisa had been determined to bridge the gap and bring the two families together, at least for one night.

"I don't really care about what problems you and Jenna are having," she'd told her son curtly. "The thing is that you don't get, K.C., is that this isn't about you anymore. Or Jenna, or me, or Kyle. It's about that baby. This baby is coming into the world with enough problems without having a real family. So that's what we're going to do tonight. We're going to be a family, and we're going to start everything straightened out by the time it gets here. Cause without family, you're nothing."

K.C. figured her opinion weighed little more than sunlight.

"All this is coming from a mom who locked her kid in a closet," he'd snapped, before he had a chance to control his mouth.

Lisa had turned around and slapped him, so hard and so fast that it took him a minute to realize what had just happened. She'd stepped back, looking at him with her arm raised and tears filling her eyes, and then turned away from him as if she were Medusa- the slightest glimpse would turn him to stone.

"Who are you," she'd said. It wasn't like she was asking it, she was just stating it. "I don't know who you are."

They'd gone through with the whole dinner on Christmas Eve like she'd wanted, though she had been the only one. Kyle spent the time shooting daggers at K.C., and poor Jenna had been trying to be polite as possible, making awkward conversation with his mother and trying to shoot him covert compassionate looks when she was sure Kyle wasn't looking- _"I'm so sorry about this"._

Right around 7 PM, as they were clearing dishes, Jenna had disappeared to the bathroom, then suddenly came out, white-faced and demanding his mother.

There had been blood on her dress, even more on the bathroom floor. A lot of blood.

Christmas Eve that year was spent in the hospital. The woman in the waiting room took one look at Jenna and admitted her without question. Jenna was hooked up to a fetal monitor, given an IV filled with drugs determined to stop her early labor contractions- which by this time were coming seven minutes apart, fast and hard and painful.

K.C. had spent the majority of the night in a total daze, holding Jenna's hand without noticing anything except the pain in his fingers when she squeezed them in a death-like grip as the doctor explained to them the possible consequences of their baby being born that night, like an accountant tallying up company expenditures.

Higher risk of childhood death. Less likely to reproduce as adults. Slower educational attainment. More likely to have premature births themselves. Higher risk of long-term disabilities. Increased rates of blindness, deafness, neurodevelopment problems. Immature, undeveloped vital organs and lower immune system strength. Increased risks of subdural hematomas. Increased risk of breathing problems.

Thankfully, they'd managed to stop Jenna's labor, and when Alex was born four months later, it was on time and she was completely healthy. But K.C. had never forgotten the fear of that night, and he was positive Jenna never would, either.

Their first real scare as parents, and it could have ended in their daughter's death.

"K.C., if Alex _had_ been born that night, if something had been wrong with her, would you still have loved her? Would we even be having this conversation now?"

K.C. glanced at her, surprised. "Where is this coming from?"

"Just answer the question."

He paused, hesitant to answer her.

Yes, he wanted to say. Yes, he would have loved Alex no matter what. Yes, he would have loved her if she had a million things wrong with her. Because he couldn't imagine it otherwise. He couldn't imagine thinking of his daughter and not being filled with a fierce, overwhelming, almost swooning feeling of love and protectiveness wash over him.

But…

But the other part of him- that cold, sly voice in the back of his head, the one that spoke truths and admitted things that K.C. would never bring himself to say aloud, knew otherwise.

_No, you wouldn't have. Because she would have been damaged beyond repair. She would have been fucked up, and nothing could have ever made her right again. _

_Like you were._

_Like you still are._

_Fucked up._

_Damaged beyond repair._

"_My dad's in jail, Jenna…I can't be one."_

He remembered vividly the Christmas they had rushed a bleeding and terrified Jenna to the hospital, along with his pale, stricken mother and equally horrified Kyle. Remembered watching Kyle kiss his sister's forehead and his mother hold Jenna's other hand, telling her it would all be alright. Remembered seeing the ultrasound of his daughter for the first time, a tiny, half-formed creature the size of a human heart, growing right under Jenna's in the quiet, dark, warm world of her belly.

And clearly remembered thinking, shocked with his clarity and repulsed by its allure: _if it dies, all of your problems are over._

_No teen daddyhood. No baby to take care of. No youth wasted. You can keep playing football. Keep going out with friends. Keep doing what you want. Enjoy your high school years. Go to college. Do all the things you're supposed to do as a teenager, have all the experiences you want._

_If it dies, you're home free._

_It's not like you ever wanted it in the first place, anyway._

Except that night, it suddenly wasn't an "it" anymore.

It was a "she".

He didn't want to be a dad at 15.

But, God, did he really want it to be like this?

"No."

Jenna sat up, pushing away from him. "What?"

"No, it wouldn't have mattered." He sighed. "Alex is Alex. She's my daughter. I love her." He flopped down on the bed, covering his eyes with his hands. "I don't know what I do to convince you that I don't. Why? Would it have mattered to you?"

Jenna shook her head. "No," she said, her eyes darting.

K.C. peered closely at her. "What's bugging you?"

"Nothing."

He snorted. "What did I do this time?"

Jenna shot him a look. "Not everything is about you. Shocking, I know."

"Forget it," he muttered, swinging his legs over the bed to leave.

"Wait," Jenna called.

He paused, one hand on the doorknob.

"Do you think we could have gone through it again?" she asked.

He frowned. "Gone through what again?"

"If we'd lost Alex. Could we have gone through losing Sav if we'd lost Alex?"

K.C. stared at her like he'd never seen her before.

"Well?" she pressed, her eyes wide and feverish. "What do you think?"

He shrugged. "I…I have no idea. Maybe. I guess. I just don't know. Christ, why are we even talking about this?"

"I don't know if I could have," Jenna whispered. "I don't know how I'd ever get over it." She sat back against the bed. "I wouldn't, probably. I don't think I'd ever be able to get over it, if she'd died."

"But she didn't," he reminded her gently. "And we'll get over this."

Jenna rolled her eyes, and K.C. could see her wiping some tears away.

"I don't know how anybody ever gets over anything," she said.

K.C. went back to the bed and wrapped his arms around her.

"Okay," he said, burying his neck into her shoulder. "Way to start the morning off morbid and depressing."

Jenna giggled, still wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

"Sorry," she laughed. "I look like crap right now."

K.C. kissed her forehead. "You look beautiful."

"Liar."

K.C. leaned closer and kissed her lips. "You have morning breath and you look beautiful."

Jenna snickered. "I look like a blonde raccoon…"

"And you're still beautiful," he finished, and this time, Jenna leaned in and kissed him back.


	16. Chapter 15

**Author's Note: An Alli chapter. This was pretty slow-going; hard to write her into this story, since before this all we've seen of her is outsider perspective.**

**A very special shout out to Sarenka222, who helped me write the Alli bits. You are wonderful. Thank you for all your insight & inspiration. And your grammar awesomeness, because without it my wording would be as awkward as that kiss between Jenna and Sav. **

**I don't own "Flavor of the Weak" by American Hi-Fi or "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. But you should go to iTunes & buy them. Go do it. Like, ten minutes ago.**

**REVIEW.**

"Her boyfriend, he don't know anything about her…"

Alli reached over and hastily dried her fingers on the dishrag hanging from the fridge handle before turning up the dial on her iPod dock.

"He's too stoned," she sang along, scraping bacon grease off the frying pan, "Nintendo- I wish that I could make her see…she's just the flavor of the weak!"

Humming along with the guitar riffs, Alli placed the clean pan on a paper towel on the countertop, alongside the rest of the detritus of this morning's breakfast. She hadn't planned on being the only one doing the dishes, but with Clare outside with Eli and Adam and K.C. and Jenna upstairs doing…whatever it was they were doing, Alli was the odd man out.

She couldn't say she minded too much, actually. With everyone catching glimpse of her out of the corner of their eyes, boring holes into the back of her when they were sure she wasn't paying attention, plus everyone always whispering whenever she turned her back, it was like being back in school after Sav had died. Everyone watching her every move like she was on display: _This is a grieving relative. Stare at it, and then be in awe of how terrible it looks, and most of all, praise God or Allah or Hare Krishna and Santa Claus that this isn't happening to you._

At least now, she was alone for what felt like the first time all weekend. Nobody whispering behind her back, no concerned, furtive looks aimed her way when they thought she couldn't feel them, and no Clare there to ask her if she was okay every fifteen seconds.

She knew her friends meant well. But as much as she appreciated being cared about, she resented being studied. So for now, she enjoyed the solitude of the kitchen, listening to music and doing the dishes, without having to pretend like her friends didn't think she was one tick shy of a nervous breakdown.

Alli switched the next song and let "Teenage Dream" blare through the speakers, humming along as she tapped her bare feet on the kitchen tile and dried the silverware with a rag. As she reached over to place the handful of clean utensils on the countertop, she caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the glassy oven door.

Walking Dead. That's what she felt like, in those weeks- a few months- after her brother's death. Whenever everybody looked at her, Alli had this creepy feeling that they weren't really seeing her; they were seeing Sav, mutilated and covered in blood and bits of broken glass. The feeling made her skin crawl and the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

Even worse, she wasn't immune herself. There were times when she showered in the dark.

"_Ten minutes."_

_Alli rolls her eyes and chooses to ignore this, instead focusing back on her reflection in her vanity mirror as she gently tucks a few loose strands back into the bun piled on top of her head._

_Footsteps up the stairs, then an irritated knock on her bedroom door, and before she can say anything, he's leaning against her doorframe, looking very put-out._

"_Ten minutes," he threatens. "Ten minutes, and then I'm going to Fiona's without you."_

_She rolls her eyes again, spritzing herself with perfume. "Whatever."_

_In her mirror, Sav's reflection narrows his eyes at her and folds his arms over his chest. "You know, you should be thanking me. It's because of me that Mom and Dad are even letting you go to Fiona's party to begin with."_

_She turns around and raises her eyebrows at him. "I believe it should be you who should be thanking me," she replies. "Dad wasn't going to let you go unless you took me, too, remember?"_

_Sav shoots her a look. "Ten minutes," is all he says. "I mean it, Alli. I'm leaving. We're already late because you can't tear yourself away from that mirror."_

_She turns back to the mirror, touching up on some eyeliner. "Whatever," she repeats._

CRASH.

With a start, Alli stumbled back from the countertop, nearly tripping over a kitchen chair as she leapt backward from the broken ceramic on the tile floor. As carefully as she could in bare feet, she bent down and began scooping up the biggest bits of the shattered mug she had dropped with her hands.

Her brother was gone. That was something she was going to have to live with for the rest of her life. Her big brother, her always-protector, always-defender, sometimes-nuisance but always-loving and supporting big brother who had always been there to take care of her (albeit grudgingly, when it didn't suit his own convenience) was gone forever, and she'd never gotten the chance to say goodbye.

She didn't realize she was crying, and even as the tears dripped off the bridge of her nose and down to the floor, it took her a moment to realize what they even were in the first place.

Before she knew it, she was kneeling on the kitchen floor. In her hands she held the broken bits of ceramic, her head bent towards the ground, so low her forehead grazed the cool tile.

Her breathing hitched, and a tremor passed through her body, curling her into a comma as she knelt on the ground. Letting the broken cup clatter out of her hands, she ran her fingers through her hair, then took them and covered her eyes.

It was the gesture of a little girl, scared of the monsters in her closet and the Boogeyman under her bed, evil creatures lurking in the dark places of her heart that came out in the middle of the night to eat her in a single bite, and then spit out just the bare bones.

It was the gesture of a young woman whose grief was suddenly crashing down, and was too much to bear all at once.


	17. Chapter 16

**Author's Note: Special thanks to Musik Snob, who gave me the "I'm not dead!" line. Brilliant. As usual. **

**Needtobreathe's "We Could Run Away", and Jesse Thomas's "On A String" kept this chapter going. So go on iTunes and buy them. Let them bring you some inspirational flow your way.**

**(sidebar- Jesse Thomas's song 'Stay' was featured in "Don't Let Me Get Me". Check her out. She's terrific)**

**REVIEW.**

**(11:41 AM)**

"This tree is awesome."

Eli stopped at the trunk of an enormous tree, an enormous limb curved and hunched over like an old woman's back.

Adam rolled his eyes. "Yeah. It's so much different from the other 20,000 ones in this place."

"See, this is why we never invited you on one of our urban adventures," Eli commented, hoisting himself up onto the limb with an almighty heave.

"Because I don't get all excited for nature?"

"Because you don't see how awesome this tree is." Eli leaned against the tree trunk, stretching his legs out on the long limb. "See? I feel like Frodo Baggins in The Shire in this thing."

Adam snorted. Clare grinned at Eli, climbing up the trunk to sit beside him.

Adam snickered as she sidled gingerly onto the limb beside him.

"Clare and Eli," he teased, "sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Eli smirked down at him, then leaned forward and glazed his lips over Clare's.

Adam laughed. "Alright, if you two are gonna get all P.D.A. way out here, I'm coming up there." Scrambling up the tree trunk, he stepped around the spiderweb of limbs carefully, until he lowered himself between the two of them.

"My butt hurts," he said as soon as he sat down. "And I'm pretty sure a bird just crapped on my head."

"You need some Prozac," Eli told him, motioning his arm in a grand, sweeping gesture. "Look at this view."

Clare steadied herself on the limb and stared out at the hypnotic metronome of the tree branches swinging back and forth in the breeze, smelling the damp and pine of the forest floor. Even through the trees, she could see the lake, the loose flower cherry blossoms that had blown off their branches in the early summer breeze drifting across the still surface.

"You don't get a view like this in the city," she murmured.

"It's like something straight out of a post card," Adam agreed, his arms snaking around both of their shoulders.

**(11:57 AM)**

"That," Jenna said, after a beat, "was what I call acting like we don't have a baby."

K.C. smirked down at her, arching one eyebrow quizzically. "We have a baby?"

Jenna smacked him playfully with a pillowcase.

He sat up against the head board, pulling his arms tighter around her as she rested her head on the nook of his chin and shoulder. One hand reached up and began absentmindedly stroking her blonde hair, the other intertwining with her fingers as they rested on the space right above his heart.

"That was nice," she murmured against his chest.

He raised his eyebrows, glancing down at her in his arms. "That's it?"

She smiled. "What did you expect me to say?"

"Oh, I don't know," he sighed. "Earth-shattering? Mind-blowing? Cataclysmic? Apocalyptic?"

It was Jenna's turn to smirk. "Someone sure thinks highly of himself."

**(12:07 PM)**

After picking herself up off the kitchen floor, Alli forced herself into the bathtub, letting the warm water run over her, a gentle massage that soothed the pounding in her head. When the tub was drawn and full, she climbed in and laid back in the steaming water, dangling one arm over the edge of the tub like a corpse as her fingertips grazing the wet bathroom floor.

As she closed her eyes and rested her head against the lip of the tub, she remembered how, after her brother's death, she and her mother would both stay in their showers forever- that is, after her father finally forced her mother out of bed long enough to get into the shower.

That time in the shower was something Alli looked forward to, those glorious minutes that sometimes turned to hours where she could hide herself away in the one place she wouldn't be bothered, turning up the heat so high that mist engulfed the entire room, fogging the mirror so badly she couldn't make out her own reflection.

She wondered if her mother ever did the same. If it pained her to look at her own face in the mirror, knowing how much of herself she had passed on to her son. If she looked into her own eyes and saw the image of her dead son shining back at her.

Alli wondered, not for the first time, if, for the rest of her life, people would always watch her growing up and compare her to her brother, seeing his image growing up alongside her. When she graduated high school, they would tell her that he would be so proud of her. When she moved away from home, if they would say that he would always be with her, no matter where she went. When she got married and had children, if they would look like him, and if she would see her brother grow up again, this time getting to live out the life that was so unfairly stolen from him.

God, that would be weird. A child of hers, someone that her brother would never have the chance to meet, running around looking just like him and having his face without ever knowing the person who it came from.

To her, her brother would always be alive, even when he was gone. But to her future children- or her future husband, and her future co-workers, and future friends and everyone that she would meet in her life from this moment on- he would just be Alli's Brother/ The Brother Who Died In A Car Accident. It would be the kind of thing that's said about her by way of explanation, a fact that people need to know in order to really 'know' Alli.

She could see it now- the kids on her dorm floor in college, her co-workers huddled around the water cooler, a crowd at a party she was attenting. They were watching her pass by and whispering amongst themselves: "Oh, but you know, _that's _the girl whose brother died in a car accident." It would be an offhand remark, offhand comment, where people will say it to each other as this sort of given. This sort of thing that almost goes without saying when you talk about Alli Bhandhari.

At least all the people gathered here this weekend with her had actually _known_ her brother. To them, he was more than just an abstraction, a dark cloud hanging over her head, a story of a family  
tragedy passed down through third party - something you could tsk at and utter, "what a shame". They would remember the real person he had been, instead of just creating a vague, cookie-cutter image from public domain of a dead boy.

To them, he would always be an abstract concept, hovering slightly above their reach.

She never wanted to forget Sav. She couldn't ever forget him. But Eli's words from the night before rang into her head, more like the voice in her head, telling her what she already knew.

She didn't think she'd ever get over him being gone.

Or if the day would ever come when she would eventually be able to leave him in her memories, where he belonged, and live her own life, free of him.

Because even though there were days when she didn't carry him around with her like an anvil, not a day went by when she didn't miss him, and it didn't hurt to know that he would never come back.

**(12:11 PM)**

They trooped back in around lunchtime, sweaty and damp from the humidity- and the water fight that Adam had dragged both of them into, which ended with Eli dumping an entire handful of wet sand down his back and the both of them falling face-first into the lake water.

K.C. and Jenna were cuddled on the couch and sipping coffee, wrapped in the green quilt Adam had slept with the night before, their faces flushed and their hair flying every whichaway.

Eli smirked at them as he trekked upstairs stairs towards the shower. "Nice hair," he commented as he bounded up the steps.

K.C. scowled. "Well, fuck you, too, Goth Boy."

"Gross, guys," Adam complained. "I do have to sleep there tonight, thank you very much."

"Don't worry," K.C. said. "We kept it upstairs."

He wrinkled his nose. "Ewww."

Clare caught Jenna's glance, and both of them rolled their eyes.

"Don't worry, Clare-Bear," she told her. "We threw the sheets in the washer. Along with somebody else's, I noticed," she added with a mischievous grin.

"Great," Adam groaned. "Let's make this the meeting of the Committee of People Who Are Getting Laid. I'll just go outside until it's over. Don't mind me."

"I know how you can do it," K.C. commented. "Go upstairs. Lay on the bed for an hour. Laid becomes past tense."

"K.C.!" Jenna smacked his knee, and Clare giggled.

"Hey, Alli isn't here with anybody, either," K.C. pointed out. "So that makes you two even."

"Where is she?" Clare asked. "I haven't seen her all day."

Jenna shrugged. "She wasn't around when we came down here. Maybe she went out for a walk?"

"I didn't see her when we were out there," Adam said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

The three of them shot a concerned look at Clare, who just shrugged helplessly.

"I don't know," was her answer, not an answer at all.

"Don't know what?"

Alli came down the steps, her hair damp and her feet bare. "Don't know what?" she repeated.

"Where you were all morning," K.C. said lightly.

"Oh," she said. "I was sleeping. Tired. I took a nap after I cleaned up breakfast."

"We could have helped you with that," Jenna told her. "You could have asked.

Alli made a noncommittal gesture. "Don't worry about it. I didn't mind doing it alone." She looked past Clare to the kitchen. "Is that coffee?"

Clare opened her mouth to say something else, but then snapped her mouth shut like a window shade as Alli brushed past her without looking her in the eyes. Instead, she stood there in the kitchen, her arms folded over her chest, feeling stupid and useless as Eli came down the steps and joined the rest of the group in their own conversation.

"Are you doing okay?" Clare asked quietly, while everyone else chatted away in the family room.

Alli sighed. "Of course I am," she said, sounding exasperated. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Clare shrugged, trying to look unconcerned. "Just asking."

"Just trying to make sure I'm not about to freak out?" Alli asked sharply.

"No, Alli," she protested, "that's not it…"

"Oh, yeah?" she replied. Her voice was rising like steps on a staircase, and now the chatter in the other room had ceased as attention turned to the two girls. "Then what is it? Cause I'm getting kind of tired of the constant questions. No, scratch that. I was tired two days ago. So you can stop anytime."

"Alli, I'm sorry…" Clare began.

Alli barked out a cross between a laugh and a sob.

"God, everybody's sorry! Everybody's so sorry about everything! " She rounded on them. "Well, guess what? You don't need to BE sorry! There's nothing to be sorry about, alright? It doesn't change anything!"

"Hey," Adam cut in. "Alli, chill. We're just trying to help."

"Well, don't, okay?" she snapped. "And you can all stop staring at me like that," she told them all accusatorily.

"Like what?" K.C. asked, confused.

Alli placed her hands on her hips.

"I'm not dead, you know!" she shouted.

The words tightened around Clare's heart, a hand around her throat. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean, I'm alive, okay?" She whirled around, eyes bright and hard. "I'm not Sav. So you can all stop staring at me like I am. I'm here. I'm Alli."

She flung out her arms wildly. "See ME. Not him. He's gone. I'm still here."

"Alli…" Clare whispered, stepping closer to her friend with her arms outstretched. "Oh, Alli."

She shrank from Clare's arms, brushing past her, but Eli put a hand on her shoulder and drew her close very gently, resting his head on her shoulder. Alli buried her face into his collarbone, hiding away from them like a child burying herself in a parent's arms to shelter herself from something she found terribly frightening.

"It's alright," Eli murmured, brushing her back into small circles. "It's alright."

Clare reached out, more gingerly this time, and placed her hand on Alli's shoulder, wrapping herself around her best friend until she was sandwiched between her and Eli.

Eli was remembered of how, after Julia's death, people would look at him and then, just as quickly look away. It wasn't just because he was now covered with the stain of death, something so few of his fellow students hadn't been touched by- it was the fact that wherever he went, he was followed by her apparition. It was a mark on him that he couldn't erase if he tried; wherever he went where there were people who had known the both of them, they saw her, as well. She was as permanent as a shadow, unable to be shaken off or erased, and marked him as unequal in the one group where he would have blended in seamlessly- his friends.

Their lives had given birth to connections that could never be erased, or forgotten. No matter how their lives would twist and contort, beyond any recognition from what they used to be until they were far-cry from anything familiar, those chain links would still remain intact. The people that they had forged them with would never completely be erased from who they were. However fleeting their liaisons had been, each one had left their marks, indelible and irreplaceable as a fingerprint.

No matter how life changed, that print remained the same.

You could never erase or change the people who had passed through your life.

The chain that linked the living and the dead was invisible, but tangible.


	18. Chapter 17

**Author's Note: Final chapter. Very hard to write. I have grown attached to this story, but it was tough to end it the way I wanted. I really cannot write endings. Listening to the Princess & The Frog soundtrack helped get me through this, though. And putting "Son of a Preacher Man" & "Wild Wild West" by the Escape Club on repeat. Seriously. **

**Dedicated to the Snob, without whom this fic would not exist in the first place =) Mucho love for you! **

**Anyway…here you go! Enjoy! (?)**

**I don't own Degrassi. Nor do I own any of the songs used in this chapter, although I did make up a lot of the band names (like Honest Kitchen, but in all honesty, give it a few years and I'm sure we'll be hearing them on Sirius Alt Nation's Most Downloaded). And Alex Guthrie belongs to Musik Snob, so don't use her without Snob's permission.**

**REVIEW.**

**I.**

"Try that," Eli said.

Clare took Jenna's guitar from him and awkwardly settled it on her lap. No matter how many times she tried to re-position it, it still felt cumbersome and uncomfortable, and she couldn't seem to make her body mold into the instrument's curves the same way that Eli and Jenna could.

Eli took her fingers and shaped them around the guitar strings like putty. "Now remember," he told her, "keep your fingers on this fret"- he moved her fingers up the fret board- "and strike this string, and then move your fingers down to this string."

Clare nodded, but when she looked down at her own fingers, she couldn't seem to make them strike the same notes like Eli and Jenna did. Both of them had long, thin, graceful fingers, while hers were shorter and stockier. She struck the chord, and winced at the discordant buzz it made.

"You need to lift your hands more, Clare-Bear," Jenna pointed out. "Really curl your wrist around the fret board."

"It should hurt your wrist more," Eli added.

She smirked at him. "I'm not the masochistic one."

Jenna took the guitar from her. "Here," she demonstrated. "Try lifting your wrist like this." She picked the same chord, and this time, there was a crisp, clear strike of precision.

K.C. grinned at Clare. "Don't feel bad," he told her. "When she first taught me how to play, I had to ice my wrist, it hurt so much."

She nodded. "It is definitely a lot harder than it looks."

Jenna caught her eyes over the guitar, and both girls smiled at one another knowingly.

"That's what he said," the simultaneously intoned.

K.C. looked dumbfounded. Eli laughed.

"Déjà vu," Alli giggled, taking the guitar from Jenna. "let me try."

Settling the guitar across her lap, she began to strum absentmindedly, the same chord that Clare and Jenna had strummed, then strung a few more notes onto the end.

She glanced up at Clare. "Recognize that?" she asked, playing it again.

Clare closed her eyes, listening to the notes. " 'House of the Rising Sun'," she recognized.

Alli nodded.

"I didn't know you played guitar," K.C. said to Alli.

"I don't, really," she replied. "I just play a few chords."

She paused a moment. "After Sav died," she said, clearing her throat the tiniest bit, "I took his guitar and put it in my room. It was, like, the closest thing I had to remembering him, you know? I mean, his guitar was his other arm, basically. So I kept it with me. And after awhile, I just started picking it up, and picking at it."

They nodded, looking everywhere but directly at her. After Alli's moment in the kitchen earlier that day, they seemed to have finally settled on some tenuous peace, reaching a level of ease that seemed to dissipate the dark cloud that had hung over all of them like a fog for the first part of the weekend.

It wasn't as if any of them were forgetting the whole reason behind the cloud, though. It was more like they had finally aired out everything there was to air out, and with everything exposed the way it was, they were finally able to put the worst of the angst and sadness behind them, and take that much more of a step towards moving on.

Alli still behaved almost like a sick patient version of herself- reserving her energy and natural exuberance instead of flinging it around like she normally did- but the tense quiet to her that Clare had been sensing all weekend long seemed to finally have lifted. She sat cross-legged on the ground with Jenna's guitar in her lap, running her fingers over the fret board as she inexpertly strummed out a few clumsy chords, before giggling to herself at her efforts and handing the guitar back to Jenna.

Eli gestured for her to hand the guitar to him. "May I?"

Jenna nodded. Giving Clare a sweet, apologetic look, she rolled her eyes and pretended to huff off from her position on his lap, joining Alli on the ground.

Eli took a moment to play a bit of a newborn tune, his face still and meditative as his fingers skipped melodies across the hollow belly of the guitar, before striking a more prominent chord and playing a tune that Clare half-recognized from a CD he had.

"She never mentions the word addiction," he began, "in certain company. And she tells you she's an orphan, after you meet her family…"

Alli rested her head her knees, closing her eyes. Clare saw K.C.'s eyes light up in recognition, and was surprised when she saw him muttering the lyrics under his breath along with Eli.

When he had finished the song and everyone politely clapped, K.C. said, "Dude, where did you learn the Black Crowes?"

"My mom's a big fan," he replied. "She used to keep this album in her car and play it all the time."

"No way," K.C. said. "My mom loves them, too. Weird."

Alli leaned closer to Clare. "Looks like the boys are actually bonding," she whispered with a smile. "You ever thought you'd see the day?"

Clare grinned back. "Weirder stuff has happened," she pointed out, her eyes on Jenna.

Beside her, Adam scrambled off the ground.

"So as much as I love our little kumbaya circle we've got," he announced, "I'm starving. Anyone else wanna start dinner?"

While K.C. and Jenna began washing and chopping the veggies for the salad, Alli put a pot of boiling water on the stove, and Clare began setting the table. Meanwhile, Adam pulled out his iPod and settled it on Alli's dock, scrolling through his library.

Eli began bobbing his head as "Little Lion Man" began to spill into the kitchen.

K.C. craned his neck and laughed.

"How is it that you and I went so long without comparing music taste?" he said. "I didn't know you liked anything that wasn't, like, hardcore-emo- death-metal-whatever. Or is that just for shock value only?"

"Combined with the hearse, it's a mighty effective people repellant," Eli joked back. "Naw, I like a lot of stuff most people don't know about. My dad's a disc jockey and my mom's dad is a record collector, so I have pretty weird taste."

"No way. What station does your dad work for?"

"Solid Rock 98. You know Bullfrog? That's him."

K.C's eyes widened. "No way? THAT'S your dad? Weird. I listen to that station every day. He's hilarious."

Eli smiled. "He'll appreciate the compliment."

"Dude, I really wanna look through your iTunes library right now. See how much we have in common."

"I'll go get it. It's upstairs."

Both boys turned and headed up the stairs, leaving a trail of astonishment in their wake.

"Can you believe that?" Alli asked. "I think we might have a bromance going on."

Jenna snickered. Clare laughed, then caught Adam's eye. His expression was blank, but he had a hurt look in his eyes that she saw sometimes when he hung out with her and Eli. She knew being the third wheel was a sensitive topic for Adam, and while they had more or less worked things out between the three of them so he wouldn't feel left out when they spent time together, they could never really predict when he would get into a weird mood about it. He was a touchy thing with him, and his moods tended to go up and down about it without warning.

A moment later, when they clattered back down the stairs, iPods in hand.

"This is so weird," K.C. was muttering. "I can't believe you like The Punknecks. I thought nobody knew who they were."

"I saw them at a festival a while back," Eli said with a shrug. "They're pretty cool."

"Was that the same festival Pageant Fury played at?" K.C. asked. "Cause if so, I think I might have been there. The one at the fairgrounds last summer?"

"Yeah, my dad's radio station was one of the sponsors."

"Oh, that one," Adam cut in loudly. "I remember that one. You and I went there and both spent the entire time drooling over that one singer with the blue and silver hair. She was hot."

Eli nodded, still flipping through K.C.'s iPod.

Clare watched Adam's face fall and tighten, his eyes flashing.

"Excuse me?" she said, clearing her throat and staring pointedly at Eli. "'Drooling'?"

"I remember her," K.C. replied. "The Honor Kitchen. That band was awesome. I bought their album."

Alli snorted. "Honor Kitchen? Really? Why not just call them Justice Mudroom? Honestly, where do people come up with these names? Like, who decides to name their band Honor Kitchen?"

Clare rolled her eyes. "I think we officially reached the point of no return with the Butthole Surfers," she said.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Adam's lips twitch into a smile.

"This is coming from a girl who loves a band called Camera Obscura," Eli taunted.

"Oh, come on," Jenna piped up. "That's not nearly as bad."

"You're one to talk music," K.C. laughed. "If it wasn't for me, Alex would be a Bieber fangirl."

Eli gasped in mock-horror.

"It's true," K.C. said. "She won't let me turn off the TV when Justin Bieber comes on. She points at the TV and gets all excited. I'm working on training that out of her."

"He dances around his kitchen to 'King of the Rodeo' with her," Jenna replied drily. "It's really funny. I ought to post a video on Facerange. And he'll sing her to sleep with Bruce Springsteen."

"It's called being a good daddy," he argued. "Damn it, my baby will NOT be a Belieber."

Clare smirked. "Cute."

"Hey," Alli pointed out, "all things considered, she probably thinks she's watching Daddy on TV."

Everyone roared with laughter at that comment, including Adam, who let out a particularly loud guffaw as K.C. flushed and gave Alli a look.

**II.**

_You're the cutest thing that I ever did see_

_I really love your peaches_

_Want to shake your tree_

_Lovey dovey, lovey dovey, lovey dovey all the time_

_Ooh wee baby, I sure show you a good time_

The music blared from the loudspeakers of Alli's iPod dock. Clare and Jenna sang along, Clare in a reserved alto and Jenna with her typical bubbly gusto. K.C. snaked his arms around her waist and tickled her ear with his lips, making her shriek and giggle as she squirmed away from him, and he tugged her into his arms to twirl her on the kitchen floor in her bare feet.

_Cause I'm a picker_

_I'm a grinner_

_I'm a lover_

_And I'm a sinner_

_I play in the midnight sun_

Beside her, Adam was stirring the pasta, bobbing his head and mumbling the words in a low voice under his breath, not trusting his voice to stay level if he kicked it up a notch. As comfortable he was around everybody in the room and as much as they all accepted his transsexuality, there were some insecurities that friendship couldn't just melt away. But he stirred the pasta keeping time to the beat and sang along nonetheless. It was the kind of thing he just couldn't NOT bounce along to.

_I'm a joker_

_I'm a smoker_

_I'm a midnight toker_

_I sure don't want to hurt no one_

_Wooo Wooo_

Even Eli, with a "what the hell" little half-smile toying with the corners of his lips, sang along and drummed his fingers in rhythm as he grabbed everyone drinks, keeping one eye on the sauce as it simmered in the pan on the stovetop. He didn't go around advertising that he enjoyed this song, but hey- they couldn't exactly blackmail him.

_People keep talking about me baby_

_They say I'm doin you wrong_

_Well don't you worry, don't worry, no don't worry mama_

_Cause I'm right here at home_

And all the while, Alli chopped the loaf of Italian bread, listening to the music. She watched K.C. dip Jenna; Eli dab some sauce on the end of Clare's nose with the spoon before she grinned and stood on tiptoe, tilting her head up for a kiss; Adam air-guitaring and singing into the slotted stirring spoon. She paused a moment to take in the scene.

These people. Her friends. Another family to her, in a way. They had been there for her when her own hadn't, been a shoulder to lean on when they weren't, and were there to talk to when she couldn't imagine ever doing the same with her actual parents. However close or distant their connections were, they had seen her through the hardest times in her life.

She watched each of these people surrounding her, remembering where they were and where they had been once upon a time, and tried to connect the people they had been to the ones twirling on the floor before her. Hard as she tried, it was hard to make the images come full circle: of her, Clare, and K.C. as niners, long-haired and chubby and awkward; Jenna, sunny and slightly treacherous; Adam, guarded and fierce; Eli, both shrouded and vibrant, a paradox all at once.

So much had happened since then. Everything that had happened to their lives since that had affected each of them in ways they would never understand, and each moment that had passed them- no matter if it had been noticed or not- had created a new pattern in their design. Since the moment that they had all been introduced to each other's lives and their individual fabrics beginning to intertwine and map out new peaks and valleys of a different pattern. They had all been changed in ways both infinitesimal and irreversible.

Her brother had died, and this moment- Adam straining the spaghetti, K.C. sipping his beer, Jenna dancing barefoot, Clare leaning on Eli's chest as she tasted the pasta sauce- had come at the price of his life. This was the fabric that had been created in his absence, their lives weaving and intersecting to come to this time in place right now.

Across the kitchen, Clare motioned for her.

"Come try this pasta sauce," she urged. "It's not too spicy, is it?"

And with a wistful smile on her face, Alli joined her friends and left her brother in her memories-if only for this moment.

The shadow in her life had, however briefly, been lifted.

In the kitchen of Clare's grandmother's lake house, deep in the flourishing Canadian woods, just thawing from a cold, harsh winter, each of the young people danced to a rhythm that came from deep inside of them. They might have each been doing alternating melodies- some vibrant, some shy, some a little off-kitler but made up for in sheer stage presence and power- but it each one was individually its own, and each one was clearly heard throughout the silence of the black forest pines.

As a whole, the harmonizing that vibrated thorugh bodies, vibrant as a tuning fork, may not have been perfect, but it was a harmony, nonetheless.


End file.
